


Adventures outside Middle Earth

by AnnaFan



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AU, Adventure, F/M, Human-elf relationships, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Parody of action films, Political Satire, Romantic Comedy, Sexual Humor, Swearing, gratuitous jokes about MPreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-08 03:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 72,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaFan/pseuds/AnnaFan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Middle Earth is suffering yet another invasion of Mary Sues. What can Galadriel do to rescue Legolas from his pursuers? Send him to another world, of course. What could possibly go wrong? Adventure, humour, a spot (OK, a lot) of Legolas/OC romance. And poor old Haldir's life is spiralling out of control. Swearing, sexual references, and silliness. And very AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Avoiding Mary

**In which desperate steps are taken to evade Mary Sues.**

The mortal maiden squirmed in his arms. Much to his chagrin, this one had actually tried to learn some Sindarin, and was attempting to speak to him. None of the garbled, fractured, mispronounced words made much sense, though he thought she was saying something about his “manly embrace”.

Legolas cringed mentally. _It's a restraint hold, not an embrace_ , he thought in exasperation. He hefted the girl over one shoulder and carried her struggling form into the antechamber to Galadriel's lodgings.

The room was octagonal, with a high vaulted ceiling, its tracery echoing the high canopy of the tree it rested in. Celeborn stood by a window, looking out from the talan to the mallorn trees beyond. Galadriel sat in a chair in the centre of the room, with her attendants surrounding her on cushions. In her hand was a strange, metallic tablet with a crystal front. She tapped at the crystal with her index finger.

“Not another one, my Lord Prince?” she asked, sighing softly.

“I'm afraid so, my Lady. It was my hope that I might avoid them by coming to your realm. Alas, though, they seem to infest these woods in numbers to rival the invasion Mirkwood has suffered of late. This one made it in through the western edge of the wood. Haldir caught another two earlier.”

“Just one moment,” Galadriel said, tapping away at the sheet of crystal. “Ah, yes, I have it. _Nadarienne, Princess of Destiny_. Valar, where do they come up with these names? Now, a little bit of cross referencing from the personal profile, a little bit of tracking of the IP address, and yes, here we have the identity of our Suethor. Now for the coup de grace.” Galadriel made a few more jabs and strokes with her finger, then smiled. 

Legolas frowned slightly, realising that he hadn't understood a word Galadriel had just uttered. But he was sure that her smile was not the sort of smile he would feel entirely comfortable to be on the receiving end of. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Celeborn give him an understanding glance.

Galadriel turned to the girl. “You must be tired after your long journey. My handmaidens will show you to your quarters and make you comfortable.” She gestured imperiously to her attendants, who rose and gently took the girl by her hands.

“Legolas, please you come see me when I beautiful in Elven attire?” the girl said, casting a coquettish glance over her shoulder as Galadriel's servants led her away. Fortunately for her peace of mind, the door shut before she could see Legolas shudder in response to her words.

“What will become of her now?” he asked.

“My maidens will make her comfortable, as I promised, and gradually over the next few days or weeks, she will fade. She will feel no pain, just gradually dissolve into nothingness.”

“How?”

“Her creator sent the girl into this world to assuage her own boredom and for her own wish fulfilment. But this miraculous device, retrieved from the possessions of one of her sisters who strayed here several years ago,” said Galadriel, waving the slim tablet of metal and crystal, “enables me to fulfil her wishes within her own world. I track down her creator's true identity, place her likeness in a virtual realm wherein she may find her real-life soulmate, and lo, the creator loses interest in her creation and fails to file any new chapters to her story. Sometimes, of course, the creator is a married woman suffering a mid-life crisis and writing to distract herself from the shortcomings of her husband. In these cases, placing her likeness in the virtual realm would be most inappropriate. So I hack into her medical files and re-write the lists of healing herbs the leaches of her world give to her. The result is usually an unexpected late addition to her family, which has the desired effect of leaving her no time for the nurture of her unfortunate 'literary' creation. In both cases, the end is the same: the creator having lost interest, the created fades away into nothingness.”

Legolas could not suppress another shudder. “Alas, my actions are without honour. I had thought myself better than Haldir, who shoots these creatures on sight. I had thought that by bringing them to you I was more merciful. But I see that I was wrong. My lady, loathsome as they are, what you do to these creatures is terrible, worse than the clean death at the point of an arrow which Haldir offers them. I wish no further part in this.”

“Legolas, son of Thranduil, Prince of the Greenwood, your compassion does you credit. But remember that these creatures are not real; they are shadows, figments of their creators' imaginations. And be careful what you wish for. It is within my power to write your story such that you have no further part in the cleansing of our realms from this infestation.”

“What do you mean, madam, that you could write my story?” Legolas demanded, feeling suddenly angry. He caught Galadriel's gaze and they glared at one another for a moment frozen in time. At first, her gaze was as angry as his own, but it softened. Legolas was not entirely sure whether the softening was genuine or for effect.

“Legolas, would you like to escape the attentions of these invaders, the Mary Sues?” The Lady's voice was conciliatory now, no longer threatening.

“Of course,” he replied, then added with a cynical smile, “but at what cost, my Lady?”

“I could transport you into the world of their creators. No wait,” Galadriel held up a hand to silence Legolas's gasp of shock, and added “writing such stories is very much a minority interest in their world, and most of the people you met would not do such things, and furthermore,” (here she smiled knowingly) “those that did would not publicly admit to it. It would be a most effective way of avoiding the Mary Sues. And think what a bold quest this would be.”

“My Lady, are you feeling entirely yourself. This plan, well, it seems the work of someone whose mind is not entirely, erm...” Legolas faltered and cast his eyes towards Celeborn, a look of desperation on his face, but Celeborn remained silent.

Galadriel's smile broadened, and she said, “The first question to be settled is whether you would like to be a maid or a man in this world.”

Legolas's eyes widened in horror. Celeborn decided it was time to come to the rescue. 

“Lady, if you are intend upon such a rash course, please leave his gender and sexual preferences alone,” Celeborn said, firmly. At this, Legolas blushed. What on Arda were “sexual preferences”? (It should perhaps be pointed out at this juncture that despite many centuries since first he walked beneath the trees, Legolas had devoted his time largely to matters of warfare and heroism rather than romance and was in matters of the heart a somewhat naïve elf.) He thought back to coming unexpectedly upon Faramir and Eowyn tickling one another in a quiet corner of the palace in Minas Tirith, squabbling over who got to “go on top”, whatever that meant. Maybe “sexual preferences” had something to do with that, he mused.

Galadriel let out a musical laugh and said “Nay, Prince, my words were spoken in jest. Come, let us say no more on the matter. Let us rather call in Haldir, and Elladan and Elrohir, newly arrived from Rivendell. There are orcs to be tracked in the Gap of Rohan.”

Some hours later, when the warriors had retired after planning their assault on the orc band (one of many left over despite the fall of Sauron), Celeborn turned to his wife.

“Why do I get the feeling your words were not spoken in jest?”

Galadriel sighed. “I have given this much thought. I see no other way. The remnants of the orc battalions are not the only evil that is abroad in Middle Earth. Sauron may have fallen, but some of his lieutenants remain capable of wielding immense power. And our recent visitors,” she added, curling her lip at the thought of the Sues, “have shown that the walls have become thin between our world and the neighbouring one wherein their creators dwell. Their world, as I see when I use the crystal tablet, is a world of science, sometimes science pressed into the service of evil designs. And our world is a world of magic, less strong than in the days of Feanor, or Gil Galad, or even of recent years, but nonetheless still magical, and not all of it of good intent. I fear what might happen if our magic were to leach into their realm of scientific ingenuity. I wish us to be prepared, to have someone in place, proven in valour in our world, versed in the ways of that world, before (as the inhabitants of that world would put it) the shit hits the fan.”

Celeborn raised his eyebrows at his wife's sudden uncharacteristic turn of phrase. 

“So you will send him after all. There is nothing that can be done to dissuade you from this course of action?”

“Nothing.”

“And will he know of the role you wish him to play?”

“No, for I have used my arts to cast a spell of forgetfulness on him. He will not remember our earlier conversation.”

“Then may I ask one boon of you, for the sake of the fair prince?” asked Celeborn, thinking back to a particularly disturbing incident when his wife had doubled up with laughter while reading the crystal screen, then translated for his benefit (or discomfort) a story about himself and Elrond which still made his ears burn just to think of it. “Please, spare him the ignominy of an Mpreg.”

 

Will Galadriel grant Celeborn's wish? Will Legolas ever discover what his own sexual preference is? Will AnnaFan remain unattached and un-FPreg long enough to finish this story (or will Galadriel sign her up for Plenty of Fish, or, Eru forbid, Uniform Dating)? Find out in the next chapter of... Adventures outside Middle Earth.


	2. The Eagle and Child

Quick note on the AU-ness of this story. In order to make it more plausible that several of the human characters don't know about the LOTR, I've made our world AU too, in that Peter Jackson's films don't exist in my version of it!

 

Have you ever had a couple of days you wished you could expunge from history? Because that was very much the heartfelt wish of Helena Brodie. She sat beneath a black and white picture of the Inklings, in the Eagle and Child (the closest pub to her department), nursing a pint and wishing her friends would just leave her alone. Her troubles had started the night before with a blind date her friend Lottie had arranged for her, with a doctor from the hospital where Lottie worked. It was the sort of blind date which would have required one to be not just blind, but deaf, dumb and singularly undiscerning to make it work. He had turned out to be pompous, overwheening, and had set out to bore the pants off her (in fact, thinking back, taken in its literal sense, this was probably his best strategy for getting the pants off anyone, since he was hardly likely to achieve it by charm). And now she had to suffer the inevitable post mortem, ably conducted by Dr. Lottie and assisted by Lottie's boyfriend, Tom.

 

“So,” said Lottie, characteristically cutting to the chase, “did you shag him?” 

“Of course not,” said Helena.

“Did you snog him?”

“No,” said Helena, vainly hoping that monosyllabic responses would make Lottie lose interest.

“Did he make any moves to snog you?”

“No.”

“Did you want to snog him?” said Tom, adding his contribution to the inquisition.

“Nope.”

“Give the poor girl a break, will you?” Helena turned to see Matt, her post-doc, weaving his way between the tables with the next round carefully balanced between his hands (Helena was always envious of his ability to pull this trick off). “Was it really terrible?” he added.

“Well, it kind of reminded me of a line I heard in a film once, where a bloke is chatting a woman up at a party: 'That's enough about me, what did you think of my latest book?'”

“That bad?” Matt gave a sympathetic smile.

“Yeah, but I did get my revenge in the end. I told him all about my work, in great detail.” Helena grinned. For Helena was a quantum cosmologist by profession, and had found that very few men considered this to be a sexually appealing characteristic. Helena herself was deeply in love with her subject, but also found it to be useful in social situations where she wanted to relieve herself of the company of a particularly irritating man. In fact, she thought of it as a “wanker-filter”; any man put off by her intelligence wasn't worth having, as far as she was concerned.

“Seriously though, it's bloody years since you went out with anyone,” Lottie said. “And the last guy was that theological student you went out with for about 3 years, who didn't believe in sex before marriage. You're in danger of turning into Oxford's oldest virgin.”

“Soooooo,” said Matt, who'd decided Helena needed rescuing, “moving on from the lamentable state of my esteemed boss's love life, or lack of it, you will never in a million years guess the weird shit I overheard in the department earlier today.”

“Go on,” said Helena, simultaneously with Lottie chipping in with “Don't change the subject.” Matt decided that Helena was the person who'd be writing his reference at the end of his post-doc, so changing the subject was precisely what he was going to do.

“Well, it's up there on my list of totally bizarre, 'does not compute' list of randomness. Someone has got funding from the MoD, of all places, to work on Everett-Wheeler theory.” 

“The MoD? You've got to be taking the piss. What possible defence applications could there be in a many-worlds interpretation of QFT?” asked Helena.

“Erm, can you do that in words of one syllable for the mere medic at the table?” asked Lottie.

“Probably not,” said Helena with a grin. “QFT is quantum field theory. Quantum states are this kind of weird mixture of lots of different possibilities – Schrodinger's dead-and-alive-at-the-same-time cat, but when you actually measure something, it's in one definite state, the cat's either definitely dead or definitely alive. Except that it's not really a mixture, 'cos then you could separate it into its components, it's more like throwing a load of pebbles into a pond, and watching as all the waves combine into this really complicated surface.” She noticed Lottie's eyes glazing over, but pressed on regardless. “The many-worlds interpretation tries to explain what happens by saying that all the bits of the mixture or wave continue on, but in separate worlds – the act of measuring things splits the weird mixture into all its component possibilities. But I'm buggered if I can see how that has any military importance.”

“Unless they want to build some sort of Star-Trek style worm hole and bring the Death Star back from another universe,” said Lottie (who never really kept track of quite which plots belonged to which films).

“I don't think they had fictional worlds in mind,” Helena answered.

“Shame, I was hoping they'd bring Han Solo back through the worm hole as well.”

“You're incorrigible, Lottie. Does Tom know you're going to dump him for a fictional character who falls through a worm hole?” Matt asked with a grin.

“I'm cool with that. So long as Leia comes through the worm hole too, wearing that gold bikini,” said Tom. Lottie whacked him on the arm. “Hey, you started this fictional lust-fest,” he complained.

Several beers later, Matt and Helena walked back towards Helena's flat.

“So, how's your little romance going?” asked Helena.

“Thanks for not mentioning it in front of Lottie,” said Matt. Helena gave him a sympathetic smile. “So far, so good, we've been on a few dates now, and he actually stayed over for the first time the other night. He's... well, oh, hell. I'm pretty smitten, to be honest.” Helena couldn't help a smile at Matt's turn of phrase. 

“Hope I get to meet him some time soon.”

“Yeah, I hope so too. I really want this one to work out. And how about you? You bluff Lottie, but I'm not fooled, you know. You could do with someone who appreciates you.”

“Yeah, well, I'm just a bit crap with the opposite sex, you know. But I've been crap with the opposite sex for so long I'm adjusted to it.”

“Well, speaking for myself, I can certainly recommend the same sex,” Matt grinned.

“But we do like the same sex,” Helena chuckled, then gave a wistful smile. They had arrived outside her flat, and Matt watched her unlock the door. She gave him a quick hug, and disappeared up the stairs.


	3. Basque Problems

**Basque Problems**

 

Elrohir took up the task of telling the tale. It had been four days earlier that he, his brother Elladan, Haldir and Legolas had left the borders of Lorien. They had started shortly after daybreak, riding first over the rolling hills and green grassland of Rohan. Two days of hard going had brought them to the remains of a small hamlet, burning thatch and charred stones all that were left of the once homely dwellings. Most of the inhabitants had been put to the sword; they found a few survivors cowering in a small copse nearby. The trail left by the Orc raiding party had been so obvious that even trackers less skilled than the Elves would have had no difficulty following it. The four of them had set off in hot pursuit.

As they urged their horses onwards, the landscape had changed, first to woodlands of oak and beech, then to sparse pine forests, and finally to heathland and heather, with small rocky outcrops. They had reached the foothills at the southern end of the Misty Mountains earlier that afternoon, and had zig-zagged upwards through screes and glacial moraines. The slope became ever steeper, and eventually they crested the lip of a small cirque, a natural amphitheatre of rock. At last they had found themselves within sight of the Orcs, a band of about thirty, swarming up the headwall at the far side of the cirque. 

“ _Noro lim,_ ” Legolas had whispered to his horse, and the horse had broken into a gallop, fleet footed across the treacherous ground, leading the other three round the crystal clear waters of the tarn in the lowest point of the cirque and up towards the Orcs. But the as the ground steepened, the rough heather had turned to boulders, and the horses could go no further. The Elves had leapt from their horses and set off up the slope at a run. The Orcs had quickened their pace, but the Elves were fleeter of foot, and had closed the distance until they were able to fire at the Orcs, killing many with the first salvo. 

But a single shot from one of their foes had found its mark, wounding Legolas. He had cried out, and his comrades had watched in horror as he started to fall. But to their astonishment, before he hit the ground, he had vanished, leaving not a trace behind him. Some dark sorcery must surely have been at work. But the Elves found themselves with no time to think further.

All had been chaos and confusion. The three had forced aside their shock, for the battle was still fierce. Half of the Orcs had stayed uphill, raining arrows on them, while the remainder had tried to outflank them and move in to attack with swords. It had taken the skill honed over many millenia to overcome the Orc band, and slay them. At last the Elves had emerged victorious but there was no joy in their victory. They had set off post haste to return to Lothlorien with the news of the fall of Legolas.

At length Elladan and Elrohir took their leave of Galadriel and Celeborn. Their account of Legolas's wounding and disappearance had not been easy to impart, nor to hear. Celeborn turned to his wife.

“This was badly managed on your part, Madam. I never agreed with your plan to send him into another world, but to send him thus, injured, possibly near to death. That was madness, my Lady.”

“Truly I did not intend this, it was not a part of his story as originally I wrote the tale.”

“Then how did it come to pass.”

“To send him into their world, I needed to write his story within their world. So I published it within an archive held in what I suppose you might think of as an electronic library. This library offers a range of tongues in which the story could be written, and I thought it best to use an obscure one, rather than English, which is their world's equivalent to Westron. So I wrote the story in English as best I could, then used an on-line translator to turn it into a foreign tongue, one not spoken by many. I chose a language called Basque.”

“And what went wrong?”

“Machine translation is not sophisticated, and Basque is a complex language. Each noun may be inflected according to many cases, with further alterations for number and definiteness, then may be further altered by other words around it in the sentence.”

“I beseech you, speak more plainly, my Lady.”

“It means it is easy to muddle 'man bites dog', and 'dog bites man' if you don't know what you are doing.” 

“Which, I surmise, you did not. And what of Legolas?”

“The orc was meant to trip as he fired, while Legolas gracefully leapt over the boulder and skilfully evaded the arrows, which missed their target. Instead, in the Basque translation, Legolas tripped gracelessly as the orc fired skilfully, the latter's arrows evading the boulder to meet their target.”

Celeborn was one of the Eldar. He had walked among the glades of Valinor by the light of the two trees. His wisdom stretched back through countless ages, and many came to him for council; and so it was that Galadriel waited to hear the sage words she was sure he would have to offer.

“Oh....,” was all Celeborn could manage to say.


	4. Falling

In retrospect, the thing that Helena would remember most clearly in the days that followed was the sheer terror in Lottie's voice as she screamed.

Moments earlier, they had been jogging in companionable silence along the canal tow path, feeling satisfaction that they were nearing the end of their run. The early evening darkness enveloped them, a dull glow from nearby streetlights casting just enough light for them to see where they were going. Out of nowhere, a wind blew up, a swirling, cold wind, like a dust devil, stirring the remaining leaves. In the middle of the swirl, a strange blue light flickered. Cerenkov radiation, said some small, still intellectually functioning part of Helena's brain. But the rest of her brain felt only panic.

And suddenly, he was there. A tall figure, with an unearthly, pale face and a cloud of silver hair. He cried out in pain, and pitched forward at their feet. It all happened so fast that Lottie's forward momentum almost caused her to trip over his prone body, and she hurdled him awkwardly. Helena stared at him, vaguely registering the black-fletched arrow protruding from his thigh and the dark stain on his leggings which could only be blood. She stood, frozen with surprise, heart racing, mouth dry, feeling the shaking that comes with adrenaline kick through her whole body.

Some part of Lottie's medical training must have come to her rescue, because she was the first to react. She crouched down beside him, reaching out to probe the area around the arrow. He shrank back from her touch, eyes wide, and murmured something.

“Elbereth.” The tone of his voice reminded Helena of the way her grandmother would sometimes say “Mother Mary”, as an invocation, a plea to a higher power for protection. He looked from one to the other, clearly feeling the same fight or flight response Helena was suffering from. His right hand moved to the hilt of a knife at his belt, but as yet he made no move to draw it from its sheath.

Lottie rocked back onto her heels and held up her hands in supplication. 

“Friends,” she said. The man responded with a short sentence in a language like none either woman had ever heard. Despite her fear, Helena's mind registered that it was beautiful, so beautiful that his spoken words sounded like music. 

“Friends,” Lottie said again, holding her palms face up, then gesturing towards his wound, and adding, “May I?”, exaggerating the upward inflection of the question in the hope that he would grasp her meaning. The man nodded, though his expression was still guarded. Lottie touched the sight of the wound, as gently as she could. 

“Damn, I can't see properly with so little light,” she said, more for Helena's benefit than the wounded man's. “But I can feel blood seeping out in time with his pulse. So we've got an arterial bleed, not a major artery or it would be spurting, fortunately not the inside of his thigh where the femoral artery is – he'd bleed out in minutes from that and I wouldn't be able to do a thing.”

Lottie lifted her hands, then paused until she had caught the man's gaze with her own. She mimed pressing one hand to her thigh, then pointed to him. 

“I have to apply pressure,” she said, then reached out and pressed against his leg, just above where the arrow stuck out. “Helena, give me your sweatshirt, then ring Tom and tell him to meet me at yours with my emergency kit.”

“Shouldn't we be ringing an ambulance?” Helena asked, shivering in the cold December air as she took off her sweatshirt, leaving only a t-shirt damp with sweat.

“He's appeared through one of your bloody wormholes, he has pointy ears like Mr. Spock, and you want to take him to A&E?” Lottie rolled the sweatshirt up, then tied it as firmly as she could round the man's leg. “Bloody well get on with it and phone Tom.” Helena pulled her phone from the pocket of her tracksuit bottoms and made the call. 

“Now help me get him to his feet.” Lottie mimed walking to the man, and gestured to Helena to take one arm. As gently as they could, they eased him into a sitting position, positioning his arms over their shoulders and putting an arm each round his waist. “On three,” said Lottie, and they managed to get to their feet, lifting him and taking a substantial part of his weight.

It took them the best part of ten minutes to stagger the few hundred yards to the entrance to Helena's flat. The man, though lean, was somewhere round about the six foot mark, and (judging from his weight) solid muscle. Tom was waiting for them when they arrived. 

“What on earth...,” he started to say, but Lottie cut him off.

“We'll explain inside. Help me hold him while Helena unlocks the door.” By this stage the man was drifting in and out of consciousness, and it took all three of them to get him up the stairs and into the flat, where they laid him on the bed in the spare room. Tom passed Lottie her medical kit, and she set to work. She took the sweatshirt off his leg and carefully cut the leggings away from round the wound with a pair of scissors.

“Shine that anglepoise on the wound, Helena,” she ordered. She looked at the arrow and drew in her breath. “I'm not sure how much blood he's lost already, but it's not looking good. Tom – can you press here, just above the arrow. That's good, the blood flow's eased. Now, Helena, I'm going to need you to hold a bag of saline for me while I put an IV line in. I'm taking a massive risk here, I don't know what this guy's biochemistry is like and whether this will work, but I need to make sure we don't get a catastrophic drop in blood pressure while I try to take the arrow out.” She tapped the veins on the back of his hand. 

“Shit, his pressure's so low I'm having trouble finding anything... Ah, got it.” She pushed the cannula home, and attached the IV line. “Just squeeze the bag very gently, and keep it up in the air above his body.”

She tore open a pack with a needle and suture thread. Then, very gently, she started to ease the arrow out of his thigh. Despite Tom's efforts, the movement of the arrow brought an increase in blood flow. But Lottie was ready for it – she mopped up the blood with a piece of gauze and located the blood vessel, repairing the damage with rapid stitches.

“I think I've got it.” She set about cleaning the site of the wound, making sure there weren't any leakages, then dressed the wound. She let out a sigh, and Helena saw her shoulders droop, losing the tension. Lottie suddenly grinned.

“Your music stand, Helena,” she said, taking the bag of saline. Helena must have pulled a very puzzled face, because Lottie continued, “we can use it to hold the bag of saline – unless you want to stand there for the next hour with your arms in the air. Not that the view isn't nice,” Lottie added with an incorrigible grin, as she took the man's pulse and blood pressure.

“I've no idea what they ought to be,” she said, writing both down in a small notebook, “But I'm guessing that if his pulse comes down a bit and his pressure goes up a bit over the next half hour, then that's a sign that we've done something right. Tom – can you help me get some of his kit off him?”

Ten minutes later, Lottie was feeling a bit more confident. As she'd hoped, his blood pressure was rising and his heart had steadied. He'd muttered in the same musical language, both when they took his weapons and outer garments off, and again in the last few minutes when Lottie had shaken his shoulder to try to get a response. Helena had made a pot of tea and filled Tom in on what had happened as they sat together in the kitchen, hands wrapped round mugs, taking comfort in the familiar activity. 

“OK,” said Lottie, poking her head round the kitchen door, “We'll check on his vital signs and check that he's still responsive through the night. I'll take the first couple of hours – I'll need to take the IV out when the bag's empty – then Tom can do a couple of hours, then you, Helena. In between times, we get as much kip as we can.” She helped herself to the third mug and took it back to the spare room, where she settled down in the armchair. Helena followed her.

Helena looked at the man lying in her spare bed. _He looks like a pre-Raphaelite angel_ , came the incongruous thought. _Though his mouth is more masculine, less of a pout. And angels don't have pointy ears._


	5. Stranger in a strange land

Legolas awoke gradually. Sleep was an unusual state for him, one his mind and body entered into only when taxed nearly beyond endurance. His first conscious thoughts were of a dull ache in his thigh. Then he realised he was lying, not on the ground where he had fallen, but in a bed, a remarkably comfortable bed, with cool pillows and a soft quilt. As he became more aware of his surroundings, he heard the gentle sound of someone, not far away, breathing slowly and evenly, as if in sleep. He opened his eyes. 

The room was small, with a low ceiling, and dimly lit by a small lamp on a low table. Next to the table there was a chair, and in the chair, a blanket drawn up under her chin, a young woman slept. He took in the round curve of her ears and the long braid of brown hair falling over her shoulder. He rolled to one side, and pushed himself up slightly on one arm. The movement jolted his leg slightly, and without meaning to, he let out a quiet moan. The woman stirred and opened her eyes. For a moment she looked confused and befuddled as the final traces of sleep left her, but then she met his eyes. They stared at one another for several moments, her gaze level and steady, full of curiosity and slight trepidation. He felt the strangeness of the situation keenly, a sense of dislocation, of having been lifted out of his familiar space and time and deposited somewhere unknown. She seemed to have similar feelings of dislocation; she was clearly filled with a sense of the strangeness implicit in meeting the gaze of what, to her, was an alien creature from a world beyond her own.

Legolas tried to sit up, and winced with pain. A frown crossed the woman's face, and she rose swiftly and stepped to the side of the bed. She said a single word, in a low, comforting tone of voice, and rested her hand gently on his shoulder for a moment, before going to the door of the room and calling out. He heard another woman's voice from a different room, muttering sleepily, then a man's voice, then the sound of footsteps. The second woman came into the room. He thought he remembered her tending to his wounds, remembered her brown complexion and dark, curly hair.

“Lottie,” she said, pointing to herself. The she said something else, a longer string of words, in a questioning tone. She gestured to her own leg, and mimed wincing with pain. Legolas nodded. She placed a hand on the quilt, and said something else in the same questioning tone. Legolas guessed she wanted to look at his wound, and nodded once more. She moved the quilt aside, exposing his leg, but being careful to leave the rest of him covered.

Helena watched Lottie mime her intentions, and found herself thinking, as she had the night before, how little she knew about Lottie as a doctor. She was used to her larger than life approach to the world. But last night she had seen surgical skill under pressure, and this morning she saw an ability to connect with another person across language barriers, more, across worlds. And she saw a concern for her patient's dignity at odds with Lottie's customary bawdy behaviour when in the company of her friends.

Lottie mimed pulling trousers down, and looked enquiringly at the man, or vulcan, or whatever he was (Helena found herself still puzzling about this). He looked slightly embarrassed (clearly something that transcended the difference in species, Helena thought), then eased his leggings down to expose the dressing. Lottie gently pulled at the tape holding the dressing in place, revealing her neat stitches and a clean scar. She smiled and nodded encouragingly to the man, then turned to Helena.

“Well, whatever he is, he certainly heals fast. That's about 3 or 4 days of healing in the space of 12 hours.” She tried to look impassive for the sake of her patient, but Helena could see she was shaken. “Helena, there's no way he's human.”

~o~O~o~

After Lottie had re-dressed the alien's wound, and Tom had shown him the wonders of human bathrooms (Tom had imparted the information that the alien seemed to have what he described as “remarkably similar plumbing” to humans, which caused Lottie to raise an eyebrow suggestively), they had put him back into his bed where he had fallen asleep again. Lottie and Tom had left, Lottie for her shift at the hospital and Tom to catch up on the sleep he'd missed out on the night before. Helena had made herself some breakfast, functioning on autopilot, and ate it out of a vague sense that she ought to rather than out of hunger. The strangeness of the night had thrown her normal patterns completely out of kilter.

Some hours later, Helena sat at the table by the window, music playing quietly in the background. She was surrounded by text books and sheets of paper covered with calculations in her rather spidery handwriting. On the floor around her were crumpled sheets of paper, and in front of her, her laptop, currently being used to trawl through the literature on the many-worlds interpretation. In short, Helena was doing what she customarily did when she felt emotionally out of her depth; she was seeking refuge in work.

She had always had reservations about the many-worlds interpretation, reservations rooted in certain theoretical preconceptions she held rather dear. Like most theoretical physicists, she often joked about how the world would be a much more elegant place without experimentalists coming along and making it untidy. However, intellectual prejudice aside, she was prepared to admit (albeit grudgingly) that when one's pet theory collided in an uncomfortable way with a recalcitrant experimental fact, the experimental fact won. And there was six foot of ethereally beautiful recalcitrant experimental fact currently asleep in the bed in her spare room.

Unbeknown to Helena, the recalcitrant experimental fact was stirring. Legolas woke for the second time in the strange new world to two sensations. His leg had almost stopped hurting, and he could hear music. He was struck by this music; human songs had always seemed to him crude, childish efforts. But this was different. It had a profound beauty. As he listened he became aware that the music was made both by musicians and singers, their parts weaving together in a complex and entrancing way. And, even though he could not understand the words, he became convinced that this was music which, like the Lay of Luthien, told a story. Men's voices driving the narrative forward alternated with choruses adding dramatic depth. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, got to his feet and went off in search of the source of the music.

As he reached the doorway to the room where Helena sat, the music changed, and Legolas stood, transfixed. A violin started to play. Legolas had always associated fiddles with human or hobbit country dances, jolly and usually slightly out of tune, but this was a sinuous, silvery melody, full of intricate runs, and filled with a poignant sadness. As the tune unfolded, a voice joined in – whether a high male voice, or a low female voice, Legolas couldn't tell. But the voice was filled with sorrow and longing, as of one of the High Elves of old lamenting the loss of the light of the two trees in Valinor. 

As Legolas listened, he realised that the woman he'd seen earlier when he woke was sitting at a table, her face turned almost away from him. She had been working, it seemed, from the papers scattered around her, but now she seemed similarly captivated by the music and was staring out of the window in front of her. Legolas let the music flow over him as he watched her. At length, the threads of the melody wound back to the figure the music had started from, and the melody died away. Legolas couldn't prevent his breath catching in sadness at the loss of such beauty. The woman must have heard him, for she turned to look at him.

She stared for a moment, an echo of their earlier sense of dislocation. The silence which hung between them lasted a few moments, then the music continued, a man's voice picking up the story in song. The woman stood, and reached over to a small box, touching it. The music stopped abruptly. Without thinking, Legolas shook his head.

“ _No_ ,” he said in Sindarin, forgetting for the moment that she could not understand. But she seemed to realise what he meant, and reached out and touched the box again, and the music started again. Legolas gave a small smile.

“ _Le hannon_ ,” he said, and again she seemed to have realised at least in part what he meant, and smiled back at him. She pointed to his leg, and mimed a wince. Legolas shook his head, and she smiled again. Then she pointed to herself.

“Helena,” she said.

“Legolas,” he replied, pointing to himself. She smiled again.

“Hungry?” she asked. He didn't understand the word, but he did the accompanying gesture, as she pretended to eat. He nodded. She gestured to a second chair by the table, gathered up her papers into a stack, then walked into a smaller room, separated from the first by an opening in the wall. Rather than sit, Legolas followed her, wanting to find out more about his surroundings. He watched as she sliced some bread and cheese, and piled it on a couple of plates along with some fruit. She filled two glasses with water. Legolas reached out for the plates with a smile, and carried them through to the table. Helena followed with the glasses. As Legolas took a bit of the bread, Helena suddenly had a horrid thought: _God, I hope human food isn't poisonous to him._

Legolas picked up an apple and pointed to it, frowning slightly, and looked enquiringly at Helena.

“Apple,” she said. He smiled, and tried to repeat the word.

~o~O~o~

Lottie called by in the early evening to check the alien's wound and drop off a bag of Tom's clothes. The scene that greeted her was not at all what she'd been expecting. Helena and the alien were sitting at the table; it appeared that Helena was teaching him chess. He was dressed in the clothes Tom had changed him into in the morning, and cut a rather incongruous figure in a pair of Helena's pyjamas, decorated in tiny flowers. 

Later, Lottie repeated Helena's summary of the afternoon's activities to Tom.

“They seem to have spent the afternoon listening to music and with her teaching him a bit of English, and chess of all things. Typical Helena – it was never going to be the useful stuff. He seems to have learned the names of all the instruments of the orchestra and how to say 'toast and marmalade'. It's like a cross between _A Beautiful Mind_ and _Paddington Bear_.”


	6. There's something about Gary

Galadriel sat in her favourite chair, stealing a bit of time to indulge in her current favourite pastime of reading fanfic. She told Celeborn that she was simply researching the ways of the Mary Sues with a view to reducing their numbers. But if she was entirely truthful, she would have to admit that she found it strangely addictive, so much so that she'd progressed from reading the stories to reading about fanfic itself.

She was currently engrossed in a discussion of the nature of a Mary Sue and whether it was possible to write an OC who wasn't a Mary Sue. She found herself mentally ticking off the list of characteristics of the typical Sue. 

Ridiculous faux-Elven name. Galadriel felt quite smug, having identified this one herself.

Beautiful beyond compare. Check! 

Flowing raven locks darker than the midnight sky or golden hair so bright that it cast the sun itself into the shade (according to whether the author's own hair was dark mousy brown or light mousy brown). Check! 

Endowed with fighting abilities beyond any seen before in Middle Earth (with one to be selected from the following list, depending on which male canon character was intended to fall in love with the Sue: stunning swordswomanship; amazing archery ability; heroically healing hands; fulsomely furry feet; though for some reason awesome axe-wielding antics were almost never on the list). Check! 

A singing voice which could charm the birds from the trees and reduce even a stone-hearted dwarf to tears (but only so he'd clear up the romantic misunderstanding with a certain elf which had occurred in the previous chapter; it's not like he was going to get the girl himself). Check! 

Eyes which changed colour from the brightest sky blue to deepest violet (yes, violet) depending on the emotional situation the Sue found herself in. Check! 

Fainting or being slightly, but non-life-threateningly, wounded so that the love interest had to sweep her into his arms and carry her to safety. Check! 

And ultimately destined to save the world into which she found herself pitched. Check! And mate!

Galadriel continued reading, and suddenly her jaw dropped in amazement. “Of course, it is also possible for the Mary Sue to be male, in which case...” 

Realisation hit her like a runaway cart full of wizard's fireworks. Exceptionally beautiful even by Elven standards, white gold hair so bright that it almost glowed, fighting ability rare even in Middle Earth and far beyond that of any in the world from which the Sues came, eyes which changed colour with emotion, pitched into the story wounded and in need of help, intended by the author of the story to save the world, and endowed with really rather a nice tenor voice into the bargain. She had turned Legolas into a Gary Stu.

Galadriel, who was being affected by her encounters with modern day English slang much more than she herself realised, uttered a low curse under her breath.

“Oh crap!”


	7. I never thought I'd miss an Elf.

Gimli and Fror sat in the corner of the tavern, trying not to attract attention to themselves, which was not easy considering they were probably the only dwarves for several hundred leagues in any direction. The tavern was a large room, with a low barrel-vaulted ceiling and pillars at intervals. The walls and roof were reddish earth bricks which, together with the smoke from the wood fire in the centre of the room, contributed to the gloomy atmosphere. By the fire, an old woman sat making a never-ending succession of flat breads, all eagerly consumed by the throng of Haradrim men who filled the room. Gimli had to concede that the bread was very good, along with the mutton stew, which they had finished earlier. They sat with a flagon of rough red wine between them, and conversation was flagging.

Fror was a mere stripling of only 50 or so years of age. He was a bit overawed by Gimli's reputation, and lacked the experience which would lead to any amusing anecdotes to wile away the evening. He also had a habit of blurting out whatever was going through his head at any given time, which was generally rather naïve and foolish, and almost always would have been better left unsaid.

_Much as it pains me to have to admit this_ , thought Gimli, _but I miss that damned elf's company_. Gimli's thoughts drifted back to the last time he had seen his unlikely friend. Aragorn had summoned them to a meeting with Gandalf and Faramir. The subject had been the residue of the dark forces left after the destruction of the one ring, none as powerful as Sauron, but sufficient to pose a serious threat to the peace of Gondor and her allies if they were allowed to go unchecked. Aragorn had told them of the regrouping of military strength in Haradwaith, far to the south, and Gandalf had told of how the eight remaining ringwraiths, at first believed to have been destroyed along with their master, had fled to the far flung corners at the edges of the known world, where they regathered their strength in the evil places of the wilderness.

But even more worrying was the news Gandalf brought from Galadriel. By her arts, she had discovered the existence of other worlds, and brought the fell news that the barriers between Middle Earth and these other worlds seemed to be weakening, allowing travellers to pass from one to another. Gandalf explained that some of these worlds were worlds not only of enormous craft and ingenuity, but of violence too, and the mundane but very real evil that men were capable of visiting on other men. He set forth Galadriel's fears concerning the possible marriage of black sorcery from within their own world and science pressed into the service of evil from other worlds.

At this point, Legolas imparted his knowledge of the visitors from other worlds who had been plaguing Mirkwood, strange females harbouring lustful delusions. Gimli (perhaps alone of the company) felt that his friend's description of the scheming young maidens lightened the mood somewhat.

“At last, a chance for you to be bedded, Laddie,” he crowed. Legolas shot him a glance that would have withered a troop of Uruk Hai at twenty paces, and Gimli threw back his head in laughter, pleased that his bolt had hit home.

“Peace, Gimli,” Gandalf had said, and explained that the young women, though annoying, were not in themselves dangerous, but that the principle of travel between worlds which they showed to be a reality was deeply troubling. The upshot of the meeting was that Legolas had been dispatched to Lothlorien to take counsel from Galadriel, and Gimli had been sent south, in the company of his compatriot Fror. Ostensibly, Gimli and Fror were passing as travellers with an interest in trading ingeniously created dwarvish artefacts for rare metals only found in the Harad. In reality, they were charged with gathering intelligence about the resurgence of military strength in Haradwaith.

Gimli was drawn from his reverie by Fror getting to his feet. Fror muttered that he was off in search of the outhouse, then set off, slightly unevenly, across the room. Gimli realised that his young companion had found the wine stronger than he had expected. He watched as the young dwarf stumbled, bumping against one of the dark-cloaked men. The man squared his shoulders and rested a hand on the hilt of his dagger. To Gimli's horror, Fror started to move a hand towards the haft of his axe. Gimli rapidly made his way across the room to Fror's side. Their mission required discretion, so he tried to temper his own rising anger.

“My companion begs your pardon, good sir,” Gimli said, the conciliatory words feeling unpleasantly unctuous against his tongue. “He is but young for one of our race, and your wine is strong.” He laid a restraining hand on Fror's shoulder.

The tall man shifted his hand from his dagger hilt, and inclined his head by the barest amount.

“The sages have said that youthfulness excuses much folly,” the man said. “Perhaps you and your companion would care to join me for a refreshing draft that will sooth the fires created by the wine?” It seemed from the tone of his voice that he would accept no refusal. Gimli bowed deeply and the two dwarves followed him to his table. The man signalled for a pitcher of drink to be brought to the table, and poured it, with exaggerated hospitality, into three goblets. Gimli sipped his suspiciously. It turned out to be watery goats milk, flavoured with honey and spices, not at all to dwarvish taste. However, Gimli forced himself to swallow, keeping his face impassive.

“My thanks, sir. Thror, son of Thrain, at your service. And this is my companion, Fror, son of Frerin.” Gimli hoped that his kinsmen would forgive him for borrowing their names, but he could not take the chance that the names of the Fellowship would be unknown in these lands.

“You may call me Akhtamesh,” said the tall man. Gimli looked at him. His nose was aquiline, his eyes hooded and dark, and the overall impression was of a hawk or raptor, poised motionless on the air currents, waiting for the chance to stoop and skewer its prey in sharp talons. The conversation began pleasantly enough, with the man commenting on how far the dwarves were from their homeland, and Gimli making complimentary noises about the wonders of the Harad and the hospitality of its people. Gimli found himself reminded of the opening feints and parries in a training bout, but he feared that soon the the verbal duel would begin in earnest.

True to Gimli's fears, Akhtamesh soon steered the conversation round to the War of the Ring. He enquired whether many dwarves had been involved in the fighting. Gimli assured him that, a few soldiers of fortune aside, it had mainly been a war of men and elves against the forces of Sauron. Akhtamesh continued to probe; had Gimli been involved himself, he asked? Gimli replied that he had steered well clear of trouble, staying in the northern lands not far from the Lonely Mountain. He was a peaceable merchant, and viewed the doings of the south as a foolishness which he had not wanted to get involved in. He owed no particular allegiance to Gondor, and as a dwarf, obviously had no fondness for elves.

“Ah, elves, I saw some in battle,” said Akhtamesh, thus revealing that he had not stayed as detached from the conflict as the fictional “Thror”. “A strange folk, fey and effeminate, but surprisingly fierce in battle.”

“Effeminate is the word,” replied Gimli with a chuckle, picturing Legolas's face were he to be able to hear this conversation. He decided that trying to imagine the responses which would best tease his friend would enable him to maintain cover quite nicely.

“But beautiful also. Perhaps it would be interesting to add one such being to one's collection of concubines,” said Akhtamesh, with an unpleasant smile, “having first suitably disarmed him.” Gimli suspected Akhtamesh was underestimating the fighting ability of elves if he thought that removing their weapons would render them harmless, and also that Akhtamesh was an even more unpleasant man than he had first suspected. Like most dwarves, Gimli had no issues with the sex of the lover any friend of his chose, but he hated and despised those who would force themselves on anyone against their will. He found that his sense of humour had deserted him and the game of pretending to goad an imaginary Legolas had lost its appeal. Fortunately, Akhtamesh decided to turn the conversation in a more businesslike direction.

“Without wishing to pry, I must confess to being curious as to what brings two dwarves to the Haradwaith,” he said. 

“Commerce,” said Gimli. “We come in search of rare gemstones not found in our mountain mines, and hope to trade the ingenious devices which we design in exchange for these stones.”

“Ah, ingenious devices... yes, these things often interest me greatly,” said the hawk-faced man. “Tell me, in addition to selling your wares, would you be interested, for a price, in offering your expert opinion on a device of foreign origin?”

“Mechanical marvels are dear to my heart. I should be fascinated and honoured should you choose to allow me a sight of this device,” the dwarf responded.

Akhtamesh paused for a moment, as if weighing the wisdom of allowing Gimli to see the mysterious item. Then he seemed to reach a decision, and placed a small item wrapped in silk upon the table between them.

“My soldiers captured a foreigner from a very far flung realm,” said Akhtamesh. Gimli sensed that there was a lot more to this than he was being told. Had he not been present when Gandalf talked of the thinning of the barriers between worlds, he might have missed the nuance in Akhtamesh's voice, but as it was, he found himself wondering just how far flung this realm was.

The man unwrapped the silk to reveal an object mostly fashioned of metal. There was a narrow tube, a part which looked shaped to fit comfortably into the hand, but unlike the hilt of a dagger, was at an angle to the tube. Akhtamesh picked up the item, and wrapped his finger through a ring near the angle between tube and hilt, resting it against a lever. 

“You point it at your enemy, pull this lever, and it unleashes a small pellet of metal, like a stone from a slingshot, but considerably faster, and capable of penetrating armour.” He took his finger away, rested the object flat on the palm of his hand and operated a spring clip, whereupon a hidden slide sprung from inside the hilt. In it rested a line of small cylindrical objects with pointed tips.

“It is a very powerful weapon, and would change the course of battles where one's opponents have only swords and arrows, as the men of Gondor and Rohan have. But in order to make use of it, I need two things. My alchemists need to be able to mix the powder which unleashes the pellet. They believe it to be similar to that used by Saruman in his attack on Helm's Deep, and my agents are abroad trying to find out more of this substance. But I also need craftsmen skilled in working metal to make copies of it. This is where you, my dwarvish friends, come in.”


	8. Mae govannen

Legolas felt almost healed. He had got past the need to sleep, and had been lying on the bed, resting and drifting among waking dreams. However, he realised he was thirsty, so got up in the darkness to look for water. He had been puzzled earlier in the evening when the man called Tom had returned. He had been of the impression that Tom was Lottie's husband, yet here he was, seemingly settling down for the night in anther woman's house. The puzzle was resolved when he walked into the sitting room and found Tom asleep on the couch with a blanket draped over him. Legolas could not help a small smile; it appeared that Tom was here to chaperone the woman who had looked after him the previous day. It struck him as a touching, if pointless gesture. Had he harboured any ill will towards her, he doubted that there was anything Tom could have done about it.

For an instant, he felt offended by Tom's reservations about his character, but then decided that he was justified; after all, his new companions knew nothing about him. Tom was right about one thing; he was dangerous. They were not to know that he posed no risk at all to Helena, and he knew that in wars between mortals, women were often treated abominably as spoils of war. He gave an involuntary shudder at this thought. Helena had shown him nothing but kindness. There was something about her that reminded him of Faramir. She had the same bookish intelligence, coupled with compassion and (he suspected) considerable shrewdness about people's characters.

Legolas moved silently to the kitchen and filled a glass. He looked out of the window as he drank. From what he could see, the houses round about were large and well built, and he suspected he must be in a sizeable town. The luxury of the rooms in which he found himself suggested that Helena was rich and held a high position within this society, but her manners seemed unassuming, and there was a complete absence of any servants who were usually to be found in the houses of wealthy mortals. The dwelling was filled with all manner of marvels; the sort of devices that would have delighted Gimli. There was the box that made music. Legolas was not sure whether it was enchantment or some sort of miraculously cunning artefact, but it was like nothing he had seen before. Though for some reason he could not quite capture clearly in his mind, his thoughts kept returning to Galadriel. It was as if there was something he should remember that he could not.

~o~O~o~

Some hours later and in a different part of Oxford entirely, Matt drew Jonathan into a passionate embrace and kissed him hard. Their bodies crashed into the blackboard behind them, hands exploring the lines of one another's shoulders, backs, clasping hips, and fumbling with the fastenings on each other's clothing.

“I bet you've never been done up against a blackboard full of algebra,” whispered Matt.

They had come into the theoretical physics department to pick up Matt's phone which he'd forgotten the day before, and found that on a Sunday, the place was just too temptingly deserted. Jonathan (who was an English literature postgrad) had started to tease Matt about how the very fabric of the building exuded pure essence of geek, and Matt had responded by joking that he bet he could make Jonathan forget all about his surroundings without too much difficulty. Jonathan had just started to ease Matt's trousers down when he froze as they heard the fire door at the end of the corridor swing on its hinges. 

“Oh shit,” muttered Jonathan, “Way to meet your colleagues.”

“Quick, there's a stationary cupboard over the other side of the room,” replied Matt. They stumbled across the floor, trying to stifle their giggles, managing to get the door shut just as two people came into the room they'd just vacated.

From inside the cupboard, they heard two voices, one that of the MoD funded postdoc Matt had encountered a few weeks earlier, and the other an American accent, the patrician New England voice of someone accustomed to having their commands obeyed without question.

“Are you sure this room is secure?” the American asked.

“It's not going to be bugged and no-one is likely to be around at this time on a Sunday morning. Besides, we need to talk immediately – I have to fill you in on what's happened,” the younger man said.

“And what would that be?”

“We successfully transferred someone through the portal last night. They're currently in the research holding pen at Porton Down. But our instrumentation picked up another energy spike; it looks as though a second being came through at more or less the same time.” Jonathan felt Matt's tension; there was obviously something about this that Matt understood well enough to be extremely frightened by.

“Any fix on location?” said the American.

“The kit we've got isn't as precise as a GPS, but somewhere in Oxford down by the canal.”

“OK, we'll get our guys on it and also come up with a pretext to involve the local police. They can do a lot of the basic leg work for us. Give me a description of the being you've got stashed at Porton Down.”

“Like the mutant alien from hell, apparently. Basically humanoid, but ugly, violent and very strong, with scarring and fangs. But despite the violence, the linguistics guys are convinced that he's sentient and speaking some sort of language that they think shares the basic patterns you'd expect from Chomskian deep grammar,” the English voice explained. Now Jonathan understood enough to realise why Matt was so scared.

“OK, so mutant alien – it's going to be hard to come up with a cover story for the local police, but I'll come up with something. We need to capture this guy and track and eliminate all contacts he's had.”

“Eliminate?” There was an edge of fear and distaste in the younger man's voice.

“Brunwasser Corp have a lot of money invested in this. We're playing hardball here, and you need to get used to it. Anything else I need to know?” Matt and Jonathan heard what sounded like the younger man swallowing hard, then there was a pause.

“What aren't you telling me?” asked the American.

“One of the researchers at Porton Down has disappeared, along with a pistol – he was armed as part of the team looking after the alien.”

“Disappeared how? Sold out to one of our competitors? We can get people on to track him down and handle him in such a way as to dissuade any of his colleagues from following his example.”

“No, not sold out. The instruments show the sort of energy spectrum we associate with successful transfers, only this one seems to have gone the other way,” the postdoc explained.

“You mean he's gone to the aliens' world,” asked the American.

“That's how it looks.”

The American swore, the oath of one who did not often curse and only when extremely provoked, carrying all the more weight for its rarity.

“I need to get back to London and work out how to fix this. I'll be in touch later today.”

With that the two men let themselves out of the room, and moments later Matt and Jonathan heard the fire door swing in the corridor. They stood together in the darkness, clinging to each other's hands for comfort. It was some moments before they dared to move. 

“We need to get out of here without being seen,” Matt whispered. “The best thing is probably to head along to my office, get my phone, sit it out for half an hour or so, then try to make it look like we were in a different part of the building all along.” He opened the door to the cupboard, very carefully, and breathed a little more easily when he saw the room beyond was indeed empty. The two men tiptoed carefully to the outer door and out into the corridor beyond. As quietly as they could, they headed along to the fire doors, and down the staircase. Matt let them into his office, where they spent an awkward half hour unable to talk. Finally, Matt decided the coast was clear, and gathering up his phone and a few other bits and pieces, they headed back up the stairs and out the security door at the end of the building. Once safely onto the relative bustle of St. Giles, Matt finally spoke.

“God, that was scary. OK, the first thing I've got to do is call my boss.” He pulled out his phone and said “Looks like she's been trying to get hold of me – there's a half a dozen missed calls from her. He pulled up her number and called.

“Hi Helena, sorry to bother you at the weekend, but this is really, really important. Can I come round to see you?... I can't really tell you over the phone.... Yes, it is about the conversation we had in the pub the other week... What do you mean, you've got something to tell me too?... OK, I'm coming round right now.”

As they walked quickly down towards the station and Botley Road, Matt filled Jonathan in on the background to the conversation about other worlds, and the possibility of travel from one to another. Jonathan would have thought it was a joke, had he not spent half an hour crouched in a cupboard listening to the sort of conversation that he'd only heard in movies before.

~o~O~o~

Helena buzzed Matt into the stairwell, and he and Jonathan headed up to the landing. Helena opened the door, and seemed very taken aback to see two of them on the doorstep.

“Uh, Matt, I'm not sure that what I need to talk to you about is something I can talk to you about in front of an audience,” she said.

“Well, Jonathan's just overheard exactly the same conversation I've overheard, from our rather shady colleagues with the connections in high places, so it's not like there's anything I know that he doesn't,” Matt said, rather defensively.

“Trust me, you don't know the half of it yet. Are you absolutely sure you want to share this?” Helena asked.

“Look, can we at least go into the hall, I really don't want to talk about this in public,” Matt replied, and pushed his way past her. She ushered Jonathan in, and shut the door, just as Matt stopped dead in surprise. For there, in the doorway to the sitting room, was Legolas.

“OK,” said Matt, drawing the syllables out to twice their normal length. “What we overheard was a conversation about visitors from another world, but it looks like you're way ahead of us.”

“Matt, this is Legolas.” Suddenly from behind Helena and Matt, Jonathan gasped.

“Legolas Thrandulion?” he asked. To Helena's amazement, Legolas raised an eyebrow, then replied.

“Mae govannen.”

Jonathan replied with the same phrase, then pointed to himself and said his own name.

“Not Star Wars, Lord of the Rings,” was all Jonathan could manage to say at first.

~o~O~o~

The next few hours passed in a frenzy of activity. It turned out that Helena had never read the Lord of the Rings, so Jonathan filled her in on a rough outline of the plot (Matt, it turned out, had read it as a teenager). Helena sat stock-still in wide-eyed astonishment. Jonathan also explained that his PhD thesis was on C.S. Lewis. Both Helena and Matt failed to see the connection until Jonathan told them that the two authors were friends, and members of a writing club called the Inklings.

“For God's sake, you lot sit underneath their picture in the Bird and Baby every Friday night!” he said, exasperated at the philistine ways of scientists. 

Throughout this discussion, Legolas had sat cross-legged on the floor, watching intently with an impassive expression. He could tell that something momentous was afoot, and was filled with intense frustration at the language barrier, though this feeling did not show on his face, or at any rate, not in such obvious detail that any of the humans were aware of it.

“It seems to me that there are two possibilities,” said Jonathan. “The first is that this many-worlds theory of yours extends to fictional worlds. Weirdly, at this point I'm having flashbacks to my course on Medieval philosophy. The Scholastics had earnest discussions about whether God's omnipotence was limited by logical possibility or whether he could if he chose create a logically inconsistent world. I'm kind of inclined to think that God, or the multiverse, or whatever, is limited by logical possibility, and it would be nigh on impossible for an author to create a completely logically consistent world. So I'm not sure I think Legolas has skipped from a fictional world to our own real one. And let's face it, there are fictional worlds best left well alone – think of the most crass, badly written novel you've ever come across and then entertain the possibility that it might be only a worm hole away. Ugh!. 

“So that brings us to the second possibility,” he continued. “Tolkien encountered someone from another world, and his book was a retelling of a story told to him, a true story which he passed off as fiction. If this is the case, surely either he or one of his friends must have left some sort of hint, however vague, that this might be the case. So I'm going to start on the archives first thing tomorrow and see what I can unearth.” 

“But it must be fifty odd years since Tolkien wrote the books,” said Matt.

“Well, for one thing, Legolas is immortal, so it's not like fifty years would make much of a difference to him,” answered Jonathan. Helena's eyes opened even wider at this point. Then Jonathan continued, “But there's another thing in Lewis's Narnia books. He makes it quite explicit that the time lines of the two worlds are not coupled to one another, and that centuries could pass in one while only a year did in the other.” Helena nodded at this point; the idea of a unique timeline had gone out the window over a century earlier with Einstein's special theory of relativity, and the sort of spacetimes she worked with routinely had really peculiar spatio-temporal topologies. 

“Perhaps – and I have no evidence for this, but I'm sure as hell going to look – Lewis was actually going off something he or Tolkien had actually experienced,” Jonathan said. “But first off I'm going to head home and pick up my copies of Tolkien's works – there's quite a lot in there about the languages of Middle Earth, and that might help us talk to Legolas.”

True to his word, Jonathan set off at a run, and returned, rather sweaty, half an hour later with a small rucksack full of books. He dug them out and opened them at a page covered in Elvish script, beckoning Legolas to come and join him at the table. This time, Legolas' astonishment was so great that even the humans could see that he was shaken. He began to read aloud in the beautiful, musical voice that Helena remembered from the night he had dropped out of nothingness at her feet.


	9. Of snowballs and spooks

The previous month had passed surprisingly quickly. Legolas had begun to pick up English very rapidly, partly because he already spoke a number of languages, so the business of learning a new one was familiar to him, and partly because the Christmas holiday had intervened, leaving Helena at home with plenty of time on her hands to teach him chess and English (in that order). It should be explained that her parents were “skiing” - spending the kids' inheritance – and were away on a foreign holiday. Since she did not particularly get on with her sister-in-law, she had opted to stay in Oxford for Christmas. Helena also spent quite a lot of time working, trying to find the theory behind Legolas's appearance, in the hope that they might be able to help him back to his own world. While she studied, Legolas systematically worked his way through her CD collection.

They had also spent a rather memorable (or in Helena's case, largely forgotten) New Year's Eve at Lottie and Tom's house. Legolas had rapidly grasped the idea that this particular tradition involved drinking a great deal, but had lacked a sufficient grasp on the English language to explain that he was impervious to alcohol (at least in the quantities dwarves and humans were capable of handling). Even if his English had been good enough, his sense of humour would probably have stopped him imparting this information. The end result was that Tom, Matt and Jonathan had ended up in an inert heap on the floor, Lottie had informed Legolas that he was “vair, vair beautiful,” but that she “luffed Tom,” and Legolas had had to carry Helena home. He put her to bed fully clothed and pulled the quilt over her, and was suitably solicitous the next morning, bringing her orange juice as she nursed the hangover from hell. He even managed to restrain himself from laughing at her until her headache had begun to subside.

Today, the sun had come up to reveal an Oxford covered in snow. It was a Saturday, and for once Lottie was not working or on call, so they had all gone to Headington hill with a sledge. Legolas found himself thinking once more that, in the absence of war and dire struggle (the circumstances which had formed most of his experience) mortal men were actually very like hobbits in their enthusiasm for ridiculous pastimes. The sledging had morphed seamlessly into a fantastic and prolonged snowball fight.

At one point Matt and Tom watched as Helena and Lottie tried to sneak up on Legolas, large handfuls of snow at the ready. They could see from the faint upward quirk of Legolas' mouth that he knew exactly what the two were up to. Just as they were about to pounce, he turned with incredible speed, tucked them under his arms and whirled them round and round while they squealed, before dropping them into a snow drift. He sauntered over to the two men.

“Jeez, you're strong. To think that before we knew who you were, I tried to kip on the floor to keep an eye on Helena. It seems really ridiculous now,” said Tom.

“I thought so at the time,” said Legolas with a raised eyebrow and the hint of a smile, “But I thought it was a very nice thing for you to do.”

“You mean you knew that's why I was there?” said Tom, shocked.

“Yes, it was not hard to guess,” said Legolas with a broader smile. “Excuse me, though, I think I have unfinished business.” And he took off after the two women, who, realising they were being chased, tactically headed off in opposite directions. Legolas chose to sprint after Helena, catching her rapidly and then stuffing snow down her collar while she yelled. He stopped, and she started to laugh, an infectious laugh which he soon joined in with. He couldn't help it; she looked silly and endearing in equal measures, a broad grin on her face and cheeks and nose bright red with the cold. For her part, Helena found herself reminded of the more annoying features of her big brother.

Some hours later, they all gathered in Tom and Lottie's kitchen. Jonathan had returned from another fruitless day chasing up Tolkien's correspondence in the library, and he and Matt were snuggled on a bean bag. Lottie and Tom were cooking spaghetti, and Helena and Legolas were playing chess.

“Check mate.”

Lottie and Matt suddenly turned to pay attention to the board. For it was not Helena who had spoken.

“Holy shit, you just beat Helena at chess,” said Matt. “No one does that.”

“Bugger,” said Helena, “I'm going to have to start concentrating.”

“I think I would like that,” said Legolas. “I like contests to be a bit of a challenge.” He looked at her, meeting her eyes with a direct gaze, giving her one of his faint smiles. Helena wasn't sure how good she was getting at reading his somewhat minimalist facial expressions, but she could have sworn this smile held a mixture of arrogance and something she could only describe as cockiness. She raised an eyebrow.

“Consider the gauntlet accepted.”

Legolas's smile broadened. He hadn't had the promise of this much entertaining competition since he and Gimli started counting orc kills. He had a feeling, though he couldn't quite pin down why, that this might even be more fun. 

Unnoticed at the other side of the room, Matt gave the pair of them a appraising glance.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

The most notable event in January happened just before the end of the month. Fortunately, Matt had taken Legolas out; he was training for a marathon, and Legolas was more than happy to keep him company as their runs usually took in Port Meadow, the Cherwell and various other places with open spaces and trees. Matt had a feeling that after struggling to keep up with the elf, he was going to turn in his fastest marathon time ever. 

Helena heard the doorbell ring, and realised it was too soon for their run to be over. She buzzed the intercom.

“Police,” said a male voice. “Is that Dr. Helena Brodie? Could you buzz us into the stairwell?”

“Yes, but I'll want to see ID.” Helena pressed the button. She heard footsteps on the stairs, then a rap at the door. She opened it, keeping it on the chain. 

“DI Southwell and DS Pickering,” said the voice, proferring a pair of ID cards. Helena took the chain off the latch and ushered them into the sitting room.

“Very sensible of you to ask for ID, Dr. Brodie. You can't be too careful,” the sergeant began. _An opening gambit designed to put me at my ease with small talk_ , Helena thought to herself. _Two can play at that game._

“Can I offer you a cup of tea,” she asked.

“No, thank you,” said the DI.

“May I ask what this visit is about,” said Helena politely.

“We're investigating a rather brutal attack which took place on the canal tow path back in mid December. One of the people we've interviewed as part of our initial door-to-door enquiries said that she regularly sees someone fitting your description out jogging along the canal tow path, and that on the night in question, you and a companion were seen helping someone who appeared to be injured along the tow path and out onto the nearby road,” the DI said.

Helena's brain went into overdrive. _Keep plausibly close to the truth_ , it was telling her.

“That was probably the night my friend Tom sprained his ankle. Lottie, my friend – she's his girlfriend – and I helped him back here so we could strap his ankle, then Lottie went and got her car and drove him home.”

“I see,” said Southwell, his face giving nothing away. “I don't suppose you'd mind giving us contact details for your friends.” Helena supplied the details, wondering how much time she had to make sure they would corroborate her version.

“While you were down at the canal, did you see any other people around? Anyone with a strange appearance?” he asked.

“No, no-one. It was very quiet that night.”

“Ah, I see. Well, thank you, Dr. Brodie. You've been helpful. We won't take up any more of your time.” Helena showed the two policemen to the door. She watched from the window as they drove away, then ran round the corner to a nearby cafe, where she used the payphone to tell Lottie about the visit.

A few streets away, Pickering turned to Southwell.

“What did you make of her, Sir?” he asked.

“Superficially, her account seems straightforward enough. But I got the feeling she wasn't telling us everything. Mind you, when it comes to this case, I get the feeling no one's telling us everything, especially our superiors. This has the smell of Special Branch all over it, possibly even their puppet masters in Thames House. I think we're being used because they think we're just the ordinary plod, too dim to realise what's going on, but useful for the leg-work.”


	10. No Flames please, I'm Elvish

Celeborn had spent a frustrating morning trying to calm Galadriel. She was cross. Extremely so. Her first attempt at writing fanfic had been flamed.

“They complained that my Elven heroine's name was not convincing, and that there were plenty of names in Tolkien's books that I could have used,” she stormed. “Tolkien, schmolkien. It's not like he knew every single Elven name ever used since Eru Iluvitar created the world. And one of them had the cheek to correct my Sindarin. I was merely using colloquialisms to make the dialogue more convincing! Since when has someone raised in Little Bend, Missouri, known more about Sindarin than I?”

“My Lady, please see reason. They do not know that you really are of Elven kind. They are merely passing judgement according to their knowledge, which may be limited, but their intentions are sincere,” said Celeborn. “Do not sign them up to Uniform Dating for this misdemeanour, for truly that would be wholly disproportionate to the slight done to you.”

“One of them even told me off for calling myself 'The Real Galadriel'.”

At this, Celeborn could not help but snort with laughter. He was, thanks to Galadriel's ever burgeoning obsession with 20th and 21st century Earth popular culture, getting quite familiar with some of the recurring themes.

“Oh, for the Valar's sake my Lady, you have to admit that's a bit like standing up in a meeting of the Kirk Douglas Appreciation Society and saying 'No, I'm Sparticus.'” At this, Galadriel finally began to see the funny side of the situation and started to giggle. Thus it was that a few minutes later Elladan and Elrohir walked in to find the Lord and Lady of Lothlorien holding each other's hands, laughing uncontrollably, and generally behaving like a couple of mere centenarians.

On seeing the two Rivendell Elves, Celeborn and Galadriel rapidly stopped laughing.

“What news from Minas Tirith?” asked Celeborn.

“Gilmi has returned from the Harad with a fell weapon which he has been commissioned to make copies of,” said Elladan, and told them Gimli's story. “It is his hope that he can play for time by making multiple adjustments to his version, each time missing out a component part which will render the weapon inoperable.” 

“Haldir helped him work out some of the details of the design,” Elrohir added, with a chuckle. “You should have seen Gimli's face – an elf explaining something about a mechanism to him. There was a spiral scoring on the inside of the cylinder, and Gimli couldn't guess what it was for until Haldir explained about fletching arrows with feathers from only one wing so that the arrow would gain rotation in flight, making it fly true and straight. We think the scoring does the same thing, and if we leave it out (a change so subtle that Akhtamesh won't notice) the metal bolts from the device will fire, but they won't aim true. It gives Gimli a final fall back position if Akhtamesh begins to get suspicious that Gimli is deliberately witholding a weapon that works; this way, the final version will work, but not well.”

“Gimli thereby hopes to buy us several months in which he and his companions have an excuse to be in close proximity with Akhtamesh while they seek to track down the prisoner from another world and free him,” continued Elladan. “Faramir has sent two Rangers of Ithilien with him, posing as men from Esgaroth, to try to see what they can find out. The hope is that they will be better able to move unnoticed among the Haradrim than a dwarf could.”

~o~O~o~

It was evening on the third day after passing the oasis on the trading road before Gimli, Fror, Damrod and Anborn reached the Southron city. They were travel-weary, dusty and thirsty as they passed under the great red sandstone arch which marked the southern edge of the city's defences. Wearily, they led their horses through the narrow streets between the mud-brick buildings, back to the lodging house where Gimli and Fror had stayed before. 

After a night's sleep, Gimli (or “Thror”) commissioned a messenger to send word to Akhtamesh of their arrival. Within the hour, a tall, bearded man, with sword and armour suggesting high rank, arrived to accompany the party to Akhtamesh's palace. On arriving, they were shown into a pillared hall, its cool shade a welcome change from the baking dry heat already making the streets outside shimmer. The four visitors sat in silence. As minutes stretched to tens of minutes, then to half an hour, then beyond, they became more and more ill at ease. This is deliberate, thought Gimli. He wishes us to be strung out and off balance before he arrives.

Eventually, Akhtamesh swept into the room, together with the officer who had brought them from their lodgings, an older man who looked like some sort of scribe or scholar, and a couple of servants (slaves, thought Gimli with distaste).

“Thror, my friend,” said Akhtamesh, inclining his head very slightly and touching his fingertips to his forehead. “And your young companion. And who are these new comrades of yours?”

“My Lord Akhtamesh, may I present to you Anborn and Damrod, two men from the town of Dain in the far north. We dwarves have lived as neighbours to their people for centuries, and they are now nearly as skilled at metal work as we.”

“My greetings to you. The far north, you say. How interesting. I know little of the country that far from my native land. But from your looks,” here Akhtamesh gave a calculating glance, “I would have had you marked as men of Gondor.”

“Your powers of observation are acute, my Lord,” said Anborn, smoothly. “Indeed my brother and I are descended on our mother's side from a woman of Ithilien. Family tradition has it that we take after her in looks.” Gimli gave thanks that Faramir had sent such quick-witted men with him, and watched Akhtamesh closely to see if his suspicions were soothed or further ruffled by Anborn's reply.

“Amazing how these likenesses may pass through the generations,” Akhtamesh replied, with equal urbanity. “And now to business. Thror, my esteemed friend, have you had success with copying the weapon.”

“My lord, I have what I hope will prove to be a working copy, but as you can imagine, without your alchemists' powder, I have not yet been able to test it. However, we have brought horses heavy-laden with tools from our workshop, and hope to refine the design as soon as we are able to start making tests of it.”

“Excellent,” said the Haradrim. “And to further your work, I have an offer for you which I think will aid you in your work. Rather than staying in your lodgings, I offer to you the guest quarters of my humble dwelling.” The four companions were careful not to meet each other's gaze. None was under any illusion; Akhtamesh's offer would admit no refusal, and was tantamount to house arrest.

“Your hospitality overwhelms us with its generosity,” Gimli replied. “We would be honoured to accept your offer.” If my father could escape from Thranduil's dungeons, surely I will be able to escape this gilded cage when the time comes, he thought.

“I will send my men to move your equipment and personal possessions, then after lunch you can meet my alchemists and start the process of testing and refining your device, “Akhtamesh said.


	11. Two Fights and a Reconcilliation

Stockwell was still every bit as much of a dump as Tom remembered from his youth. He'd grown up in relative middle class comfort on the edge of Clapham Common, but in his late teens he and his friends had frequented the Grey Goose in Stockwell on a Saturday night. The music was loud, the evening always rounded off with a rendition of the Irish national anthem, and, while the bouncers were meticulous about checking everyone for knives on the way in, their checks on age were not quite so rigorous. In his teens Tom had found the district edgy and gritty; now he found it acutely discomfiting.

Legolas and Helena followed him along the main road, Legolas's blond hair tied in a pony tail and a beany hat on to cover his ears. In the orange glow of the street lights, Helena noted that he no longer seemed unearthly and ethereal. In fact, he just looked rather pallid and unhealthy. _Not such a bad look for blending in with these surroundings_ , she thought. For his part, the elf was interested to discover that his talent for reading situations as benign or threatening seemed to transfer to this new world; he was picking up a very unhealthy feeling from this part of the city, and the skittishness of his companions seemed to suggest that his assessment was accurate.

“I think the place should be half way down this side street,” said Tom, and they headed off round a corner, past flickering neon and fluorescent lights from a kebab shop and an all-hours supermarket into the gloom of the canyon between the tower blocks. Shop shutters, closed for the evening, were tagged with graffiti, and swirls of litter blew in eddies in the cold February wind. About half way down, a small alleyway led under the pillars of one of the low-rise blocks to a square beyond with a flight of stairs at the far side. The three went up the stairs and followed the walkway until, halfway along, they came to the number scribbled on the paper that Tom had acquired, or perhaps more accurately, purchased, from his contact in a pub the previous night. As instructed, they knocked rather than rang the doorbell.

The door opened a crack, the chain in place.

“Yeah?”

“We're looking for Jimmy. Chris sent us.”

The door opened just far enough for them to get into the flat. A small of rancid fry-ups hit them, sticky shagpile underfoot, wallpaper that was a browning, fly-blown tribute to the 1970s. The man was small, skinny and stooped. He ushered them into the front room, a small, stuffy room with a suspect gas fire and oversized fake leather sofa and armchairs in a peculiar shade of green.

“We're here to get a passport,” said Tom. He'd been told to ask explicitly so that Jimmy would know he wasn't police; Chris had explained that the 'filth wouldn't ask upfront', as any negotiations thereafter would count as entrapment.

“I need to see the money first,” Jimmy said. Tom counted off three hundred pounds in fives and tens.

“Faked or stolen?” asked Jimmy.

“What have you got?”, asked Tom.

“Is it for the young fella over there?”

“Yeah.”

“Get him to take his hat off.” Legolas obliged, smoothing his hair in place as he did so to keep his ears covered.

“I think I've got one that looks reasonably like – skinny blond lad.” Jimmy dug in the box and produced a German passport.

“No good. He's got a bit of one ear missing – fight,” said Tom, improvising on the fly. “We need one with a passport photo where the hair covers the ears.”

“That's harder – mostly passports are supposed to have the hair tucked behind the ear for the photo. But I think I might have one if you've got a bit more cash.” Tom looked over at Helena. Reluctantly she dug an extra fifty out of her pocket, wondering how much more they were going to be taken for. Jimmy opened a drawer and produced a Polish passport with a photo of a young man whose shaggy blond hair framed his face. 

“Lech Zielony. It'll get him work in this country. It won't stand checking against records 'cos it's probably logged as stolen by now. But he should be OK to use it on buses across on the ferries or on trains abroad. Just don't use it anywhere like airports or the Eurostar where they check passports electronically.” He handed the passport to Legolas, who tucked it in his pocket. Tom shook Jimmy's hand and the three of them left the flat.

It might have been the relief of having successfully contracted his business, but Tom really didn't see it coming. The first he realised was that half way down the stairs their way was blocked by three youths strung out across the landing. He glanced up the stairs to see three more step into the top landing, cutting off their retreat. He could see steel glinting in their hands.

“Cash, cards, the works,” said the tallest of the three at the top of the stairs.

“Keep Helena against the wall,” hissed Legolas. He made a rapid assessment, launched himself over the banister to land, cat-like on the landing, taking out one of the youths with his leading foot as he did so. In a fluid movement, he swirled, taking out the second one's knife with a roundhouse kick and landing a blow to the back of the third one's neck which sent him crashing to the ground. This happened so fast the other three barely had a chance to react. They started down the stairs, without pausing for thought, a disorganised, piece-meal attack. Legolas smiled dangerously as they rushed him. He sidestepped the first, turning to grab him and use his momentum to send him tumbling down the lower flight. The second he winded with a punch to the stomach. Before any had time to recover he had the ring leader pressed against the wall, the youth's own knife against his throat.

“I have killed many men,” Legolas said. “But on account of your youth and not knowing the ways and laws of your lands I have not killed any of you. Yet. Send your friends on their way, then I will let you go. But if you come after us, I will not be so merciful.” In any other circumstances, the youth would have laughed at Legolas's old-fashioned language. But there was no mistaking the deadly intent and seriousness in Legolas's eyes. He waved his companions away, scrambling after them the instant Legolas released him.

“Come on,” Legolas called to Helena and Tom, and took them off at a run down the stairs, through the narrow passages between buildings and back to the relative safety of the main street. Throughout their flight, Helena clung to Tom's hand, feeling as though she might throw up at any minute. Her mind was in complete turmoil. Part of it swirled with thoughts of what had almost happened to them. In her mind's eye, she could see the blades, feel the steel against her flesh. But more terrifying still was the memory of Legolas's smile, a challenge offering the option of a duel to the death if any of the youths had been foolish enough to take him up on it. And the memory of his stone cold stare as he boasted of the men he had killed.

Numb, she allowed Tom to bundle her onto a bus heading north over the river towards Victoria. Her mind filled with images of happier moments: Legolas lying on her couch listening to music; his hands filled with snow, a huge grin on his face; standing beside her bed, holding out a glass of orange juice, offering her a gentle smile as she winced with a splitting headache on New Year's Day. She realised she had started to think of him as a man, like Tom or Matt. But the fight in the stairwell had brought her face to face with the reality that he was a dangerous alien from another world, an alien whose mind she couldn't begin to comprehend.

If Legolas had been able to read her mind, he would have been horrified at the turn her thoughts had taken, how fundamentally mistaken she now was about his motives and intentions. His main impulse back in the stairwell had been a desire to protect her. As he looked at her, he thought at first that she was avoiding both his and Tom's gazes out of shock. But gradually he realised that she was avoiding making eye contact with him in particular, and that she was radiating not just fear but animosity. And that for some reason, the animosity was aimed at him.

Eventually the bus reached Victoria and the three of them made their way to the coach station, to get the bus back to Oxford. Helena moved away a few feet to stand by herself. Gesturing to Tom to stay where he was, Legolas stepped over next to her.

“Are you alright?” he asked, knowing full well that she wasn't, but unsure of how else to initiate a conversation.

“No I bloody well am not,” came the terse, angry reply.

“What's the matter?” he said.

“You. The way you smiled as you attacked those guys. You're some sort of psycho.”

“I don't understand that word. But I take it you don't mean it as a compliment.” Legolas felt his own anger starting to rise in response to her aggression.

“You've eaten my food, lived in my house. And you're a killer. How is that supposed to make me feel?” Helena demanded.

“I have killed, yes. I am – I was – a soldier. That's what soldiers do. They kill their enemies to make their world safe for their families and friends. But you say it as if I was some sort of a lawless murderer.”

“And how do I know you can switch the violence on and off at will?” Helena said.

“So what would you have had me do? Leave you and Tom to the mercy of half a dozen men with knives? Do you think they would have switched off their violence because it offended you? And this is the thanks you give me for saving you.” Legolas felt a fury that was all the harder to handle because it had no outlet. He made a dismissive gesture with his hands, turned and walked to the other end of the pavement, where he stood staring into the dark until their bus arrived.

The journey passed in silence, Helena and Legolas both still too angry to talk, Tom too embarrassed. At the end of the journey, Tom ran off into the night calling over his shoulder that he had to hurry as Lottie would be worrying about him. In fact, he wanted to pre-empt Helena refusing to allow Legolas back into her flat, or Legolas refusing to go. If he left them no option but to spend time with each other, perhaps they would find some way of talking rationally. In any case, he just wanted out of a situation he couldn't handle.

 

~o~O~o~

As with the first morning Legolas had found himself in Helena's world, it was music which enabled them to breach the barrier which had grown up between them. Helena had already noticed that Legolas had developed distinctive preferences in her music collection. He loved Baroque music, would sometimes listen to Classical music, and seemed to have a rather surprising fondness for 20th century Russian music, but it appeared that 19th century Romanticism left him cold. (If asked, he would have said that the emotions were too self-indulgent and characteristically human for his taste).

They had barely spoken since the row the night before. She, as always, was hiding from the situation by working. He was lying on the sofa listening to Shostakovich's 7th. The symphony came to an end and in the silence which followed, Legolas sat up.

“It reminds me of going into battle,” he said. Helena was startled, both by him finally breaking the silence which had hung awkwardly between them, and by the acuteness of his observation. She fetched a book from her shelves. She opened it at a black and white picture of three men burying a number of sackcloth-shrouded bodies. 

“It is about a battle,” she said, “This one. This is the siege of Leningrad. That's why it's called the Leningrad Symphony.” The two sat side by side, leafing through the photographs of the second world war, Helena trying to explain. Legolas looked at image after image. One caught his attention: snipers dodging through the ruins of another Russian city, Stalingrad.

“You asked how I killed so many,” he said. “I suppose it was something like this picture. I am an archer, a good one, and could pick off the most dangerous of the enemy from a distance before they could harm us.” This time Helena had the sense to stay quiet and listen while he talked.

“As Jonathan has told you, my world was at war, threatened by an evil beyond imagining. He sought to enslave and kill all that was good and free. We had to fight, to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Battle is ugly. It is terrifying. Many are slain on both sides, the good and the bad together. I take no pleasure from the actual act of killing, though I may at times have been guilty of...,” he searched for the right English phrase, “black humour to keep fear at bay. You know, because Jonathan told you to read the books, that my friend Gimli and I used to keep a tally of how many orcs we had killed. It was done to get us through a very dark time.” 

“I haven't actually read the book,.” said Helena. Legolas looked at her in surprise. “Now that I actually know you, it felt like... I don't know, like prying, like reading your private diary.”

“Would it help if I told you that you had my permission to read it?” Legolas asked.

“Thank you.” She paused for a moment. “And thank you for saving us last night. It was very wrong of me to be so ungrateful, and I am very, very glad you rescued us. And I am sorry for accusing you of being some kind of a psychopath. Even without you explaining, I should have known you well enough by now to know that wasn't true.” 

Legolas wondered whether he should say more. Some urge to be completely truthful with Helena prompted him to continue.

“You mentioned me smiling during the fight. It's hard to explain. There is an excitement which comes, along with the fear. I'm not sure I have the words in your language. But yes, I do feel excitement before battle, and belief that I have the skills to carry me through safely, skills that will be put to the test. And a bit of me takes pleasure in feeling that I will pass the test. Maybe that's a failing by your way of seeing things.” Legolas looked at Helena, wondering how she would react. For her part, Helena remained silent for a moment, as if weighing up what to say next, or indeed, whether to say more at all.

“I guess that's it – it did frighten me that you'd take some sort of pleasure in fighting. And part of my reaction was guilt at my own feelings too. When you smiled, it scared me because I think I knew all along why you smiled. Part of me enjoyed watching you beat up those scrotes. And that scared me, because humans have a tendency to take pleasure in fighting and in violence, and it's not a good tendency, and it makes me feel soiled to find it in myself.”

Helena thumbed through the book. She turned the pages until she found the photo that sent a chill into the depths of her heart every time she looked at it. A member of a fascist militia held a severed head aloft while his friends laughed.

“Here,” she said, “this is what terrifies me, the capacity of humans to find pleasure in killing and sadism. And this is how it ended, with those same people taking pleasure in destroying lives, attempting to kill a whole people.” Legolas felt tears prick at his eyes as he looked at the photograph. 

“Some people try to persuade themselves that there was something especially evil about the men and women who took part,” she said, “But I think the more horrific possibility is that most of us are capable at worst of embracing violence, and on a lesser level of at least some level of complicity through weakness and cowardice. This is why the thought of enjoying violence frightens me so much.”

“This was the last time we had a really big war in our world, though smaller wars have been going on ever since,” Helena continued. She showed him picture after picture. Cologne raised to the ground, London in ruins, the carnage on the beaches of Normandy, the piles of bodies in Dachau and Auschwitz. By the time they had reached photographs of Hiroshima, Legolas had given up trying to fight back tears. The image of a whole city destroyed in a split second, with people reduced to shadows on the ruined walls, shook him beyond imagining.

“I have fought in many battles, I have been that lone sniper, picking off enemies with my arrows from a distance, I have fought against an evil as great or greater than that which caused this war, but I have never seen a single weapon capable of doing this,” he murmured.

Helena rose from his side. At first Legolas thought she had gone to give him space, or was embarrassed by his tears, but she returned moments later and handed him a length of tissue. He gave her a grateful look, then a small smile as he realised that, somehow typically of Helena, the tissue was in fact toilet paper.

He took her hand, and looked at her.

“I am glad you have explained. I think I understand now why you reacted the way you did, _mellon nin_.”

“What does ' _mellon nin_ ' mean?” asked Helena.

“'My friend',” he said, and was rewarded with a smile, though her eyes too remained bright with tears.

“I am so sorry for how I behaved, over-reacted,” she said, the smile vanishing, her expression becoming once more. “I wish I could just wipe last night out.”

“I know what you could do to make it up to me,” he said, with a small smile of his own.

“What?”

“Teach me to play your piano,” he said.


	12. Legolas learns some slang

Legolas felt rather absurd wearing white cotton gloves (not to mention several jumpers; the warning that the room would be colder than Caradhras had proved to be correct). He and Jonathan were in the Bodleian's Special Collection Reading Room, under the watchful eye of the archivist. It had taken his stolen passport and two forged letters, one allegedly from Jonathan's supervisor and one from a mythical professor of literature at Cracow University, together with two weeks' wait for the reader's card and a further week on the waiting list for seats, to get them this far.

The elf watched as Jonathan gently sorted through a large stack of papers covered in Elvish writing.

“No wait, back a couple of sheets,” Legolas said. “There – that one. It's in a different hand.”

“How can you tell?” asked Jonathan. Legolas rolled his eyes.

“Can you tell the difference between Matt and Helena's handwriting?”

“Well, yes, of course, but this is a different language... oh, I see, stupid of me.”

“This is the hand of someone schooled in forming the characters – Tolkien writes as one who sees the letters as abstract patterns to be copied, rather than writing. I think we may have our previous visitor,” said Legolas. He began to read, occasionally copying passages into his notebook using the pencils provided by the reading room.

Several hours later they broke for lunch. They walked the short distance up the tree lined pavement of South Parks Road to the gates of Wadham where Matt and Helena were waiting. Matt's membership of the college got them past the eagle-eyed porter and into the hall. Although Legolas had now been here a couple of times before, he never ceased to be struck by the immense wooden roof with its strange construction; “hammer beams”, Matt had told him. They stepped over the long benches lining the oak tables, and settled down with their lunch. As they ate, Legolas proceeded to tell them what he had discovered.

“I think I've found a couple of pages written by Tolkien's visitor. As far as I can piece together, reading between the lines of what little he says of himself, and the style in which he writes (he writes Westron, but using Elvish characters), I think he was one of the Dunedain, the rangers of the north. It seems that your theory about the time lines of our two worlds not always being in synchrony is correct – despite this having been written about 80 of your years ago, it was probably only about two years since the end of the War of the Ring in my world, so only about three years ago from my perspective.” Legolas paused thoughtfully, then added, “I hope not too much time passes before I am able to return, if indeed I can return at all. My mortal friends are dear to me, and I wish to see Gimli and Aragorn again before they become bowed with old age, or worse, pass into the Halls of Mandos.” 

Helena rested her hand on his arm for a moment.

“I will do everything I can to find a way for you to get home,” she said.

“I know you will, _mellon nin_ ,” Legolas replied, resting his hand on hers for the briefest of moments. Jonathan and Matt exchanged a quick glance, before Legolas continued. “The most frustrating thing about it is that so far that one piece of paper is all we've found. We don't know whether the ranger ever found his way home, or how he came to be here in the first place. Which reminds me – every so often I have this feeling that I have seen something from your world before, that there is something I should be remembering. But I can't. It seems to hide in the shadow of my memory, just beyond the edge of my waking mind.”

“Do you have any sense of what you're doing when you get these feelings? We call them _deja vu_ – it's a French phrase, another language, meaning 'already seen',” said Matt. Legolas's brows knitted together as he concentrated on his memories.

“It is strange and incomprehensible to my conscious thoughts, but as far as I can tell, I get these feelings when I encounter your technology. But at the same time, I feel as though it's somehow associated with my own world, though I cannot see how this could be possible.”

~o~O~o~

A couple of days later, Lottie and Tom persuaded Legolas to go to Tom's lab in the hospital. 

“I want to find out just how different you are from humans,” Tom said.

“And I want to know enough about your physiology to be able to treat you next time you get wounded,” Lottie added. “I heard about your little incident in Stockwell – you seem to attract trouble like a magnet.” Legolas inclined his head, a small smile playing across his lips. 

“I must admit that I have seen perhaps more than my fair share of trouble in my life time,” he said wryly.

He looked around at his surroundings with curiosity. The room was full of what he had come to know were electronic devices of one sort or another (though beyond the name, he didn't really understand anything about them, beyond having worked out how to use the CD player and cooker in Helena's flat).

Lottie had made careful notes of Legolas's resting pulse and blood pressure, then sent him to run up and down the nearest stairs for ten minutes. By now she knew him well enough not to be entirely surprised when neither had changed significantly despite the exercise. She took a blood sample, and after squinting at it on a microscope slide, announced that it didn't resemble any human blood group. A few chemical tests revealed that it did share considerable similarities, for instance the presence of haemoglobin. 

“I'll run the remains of this sample through the electron microscope later today, see if your red and white blood cells are like human ones or not,” said Tom. He carefully took a set of swabs and a hair sample.

“I'm going to sequence your DNA, if you have any.”

Legolas frowned, his brow wrinkling slightly with puzzlement.

“It's like a set of instructions on how to make an exact copy of you, stored in every single cell of your body.”

“You want to make a copy of me?” said Legolas in astonishment, with a slight undertone of panic in his voice.

“No, I can't do that,” said Tom with a laugh. “DNA is what enables your body to make itself, starting from a single egg from your mother and a single sperm from your father.”

“I think you must have some really strange ideas about elves,” said Legolas, eyes widening. “Elven women give birth to babies, just like humans do. They don't lay eggs.”

“I think we need to have a long talk about reproductive biology some time,” said Lottie (not realising that forgetting to get round to making good on this promise would come back to haunt her in the months that followed). “But it's alright, I don't mean eggs like hen eggs, I mean tiny little eggs released within the woman's body that then get fertilised by the man's sperm and turn into a baby over the course of the next nine months.”

“Except it takes more like 12 for elves,” said Legolas. Lottie made a mental note to find out a lot more when she had the chance.

An hour or so later, having prodded, poked and generally investigated him to their satisfaction, the three of them called it a morning, and headed across the road to the greasy spoon opposite the hospital main entrance. As they waited to order food, Lottie started to quiz Legolas.

“You must miss your home.”

“Yes, very much. But you have all been so friendly. It has offered me much comfort.”

“You don't give much away in terms of your emotions. You seem very guarded. But you know you can talk to us about anything that's worrying you, don't you?” said Lottie.

“We elves are like that. We are a reserved people. After all, we have lots of time to get to know people, and we do not rush these things. But we do show emotions to people we are close to.” Legolas's face took on a thoughtful look, and Lottie got the sense that he was lost in a memory. Legolas, for his part, was thinking of his argument with Helena, and the aftermath. It had suddenly struck him just how close a friendship he had formed with her, that she had become in a very short space of time one of the few people, and one of maybe only three mortals, that he would let his guard down with. Becoming aware of Lottie's stare, he brought his attention back to the present and added, “You have all done so much, Helena has given me somewhere to live, Jonathan has tried to help me to find out how I came to be here, you, Tom, have got me a passport. Which reminds me, I have been meaning to ask, I don't suppose that these things come without cost, and I have been wondering how I could repay you.”

“Don't worry,” said Tom, “We're all comfortably off, though none of us is what you'd call rich. There's a phrase I read somewhere, I think it's American. They have this idea of 'paying it forward'; when you get back to your world, when you have the chance, help someone who's in trouble.” Their conversation was interrupted by the café owner coming up to their table.

“Sorry for the wait, folks, but we're a bit short staffed. My kitchen help didn't show up this morning. Second time this week. I'm not giving him the chance to try it a third time, but everything's slow till we find a replacement. Anyway, what are you having?” They ordered food, and the owner headed off back to the kitchen.

“I'll be back in a moment,” said Legolas, and headed over to the counter. Tom and Lottie watched as he engaged the man in conversation, then returned to their table.

“Lech Zielony just managed to get a job,” he said triumphantly.

~o~O~o~

Helena opened the door to find Legolas grinning broadly.

“I got a job,” he said, “washing dishes in a café up near the hospital.” Helena looked taken aback. “No, don't frown at me, I want to be able to contribute something towards my keep.” 

“You don't need to, you know,” she said

“You are being very generous, but I think that were I of your country and had grown up with your customs, I would know that I ought to be contributing. I got talking to the woman who does the cooking and she seemed to think it was good that I was going to be paying my way,” said Legolas.

“What did she say?” asked Helena, curiosity aroused.

“She said it was good to come across a 'young man prepared to pull his weight': I think that was the phrase she used. I suppose she wasn't to know how old I am. And she said I was so much better than her youngest daughter's young man. She said he was a 'cocklodger'.” Helena exploded with laughter.

“What's so funny?”

“It's nothing, but I can assure you you have not been a cocklodger.”

“Am I missing something? I thought a lodger was someone who lived in someone else's house,” said Legolas, in confusion.

“Yes it is, but this is a play on words. So it's someone who lives in someone's house, but at the same time, to lodge is also to put something inside something else... and a cock is ...”

“A male hen?” said Legolas, vaguely registering the fact that he seemed to keep having strange conversations about poultry today.

“Yes, um, that's one meaning,” said Helena, wondering how to cope with the next bit, and wishing she'd kept a straight face and not started this line of discussion. “But it also means... a part.... a part of a man's....” Don't look down, don't look down, don't look..., said an increasingly panicky voice inside her head. Oh shit, you just looked.

Legolas caught her brief glance downwards. He felt his face flush and saw Helena's face turn an answering shade of scarlet. Then they both started to laugh.

“I am going to have words with Mary the cook tomorrow morning,” said Legolas, when he eventually got his breath back. “I will make it clear to her that I have not been lodging anything anywhere.”

 

_Galadriel's up to more mischief in the next chapter... Brace yourself for the arrival of a new, not particularly original, OC._


	13. Galadriel gets a hardware upgrade

Galadriel sat gazing lovingly at her new laptop. Much faster, more memory, much better software and a fabulous graphics card. Celeborn gazed less lovingly at the young woman on the other side of the room. She was actually an elf, if her ears were anything to go by, but like none he had ever seen. Her hair was jet black – not black like a raven's wing, but an artificial, uniform shade of black. Her eyelids were painted with dark grey powder, and her skin marked with various tattoos. She wore a most un-elven miniskirt and boots. And she was cross.

“So you're telling me that you created me, that my memories aren't real, they're just, like, 'the most tragic backstory evah,' and that now I've got you your new laptop, I'm just expected to go sit in a room till I fade away,” the strange elf said. “Screw that!” 

Celeborn looked over to his wife.

“She's got a point, you know. It's not as if she's someone else's 'literary' creation, here uninvited. You wrote this one into existence,” he said.

“'This one' is a person, I'll have y'all know,” said the young woman. “Oh my god, I can't believe I just said 'y'all'. It's like I'm some cliché version of a girl from the deep south. I think you've based my background on some kind of weird unholy mixture of _Deliverance_ and _Sweet Home, Alabama_.”

“That sounds about right,” said Celeborn, who did not have a particularly high opinion of Galadriel's fanfic. “Though I think you might also owe quite a lot to Abs from _NCIS_.”

“You mean I'm not even an original OC? I'm ripped off from somewhere else?,” the woman yelled. “And I can't believe you actually called me 'Mary Sue'.” 

“It was meant to be ironic,” said Galadriel, at last roused from her new-tech-love-in. “Clearly, you're actually an anti-Sue. And a pretty irritating one. You seem to be stepping rather beyond what I wrote for you.”

“Hey, you're the one who's meant to be into reading up about literary theory, creativity, meta fanfic (like that's really a serious topic for intellectual discussion, yeah, right). You wanna read Cory Doctorow on writing characters being like running a simulator in your head – your subconscious starts to fill in bits that you didn't consciously come up with, and you feel like they've developed a life of their own. Well, I'm your mental simulator, made flesh and running off-line, and I don't want to be switched off. 'I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.'”

“My Lady, I think she's winning this one,” Celeborn chuckled.

“Anyhow, I think maybe we can work together. After all, with me around, you have a dogsbody already created and ready to go any time you need a hardware upgrade. Come on, think about what you could do with a bunch of raspberry pis, some high quality interconnnects, loaded with linux and a python interpreter. I'm talking parallel processing.” Celeborn saw Galadriel's eyes take on a wistful, glassy, lustful look, and realised Mary Sue wasn't winning, she'd already won.

“And you'll have someone to talk techy stuff with, bounce ideas off. And I won't get under anyone's feet. Well, maybe Haldir's, a bit. Maybe not feet specifically, just getting under him in a kind of general way,” she said with a suggestive grin. Celeborn realised that the situation was way out of Galadriel's control. But then again, if the last few months had taught him anything, it was that things had been pretty much out of control from the moment Galadriel had first switched on her i-pad.

~o~O~o~

Mary Sue was busy fixing rather elderly laptops together with state of the art interconnect cable. Having reseached DIY parallel computing, she and Galadriel had decided to go down the tried-and-tested route of linked PCs rather than raspberry pis. They had come to the conclusion that parallel computing was more than just a fun thing to have; after several days of trying to think about what forms of traffic analysis, hacking e-mails, police databases, tracking web traffic and the like would be most likely to throw up clues as to Legolas's whereabouts, they had realised they would need a lot of computing power to throw at the problem. So, as promised, Mary Sue had made a trip back to to her own world and returned with a rucksack full of second-hand laptops. As she worked, she tried out her new elven hearing in an attempt to eavesdrop on the row of spectacular proportions unfolding in the room next door but one. 

A month or so earlier, before Gimli had set off back to the Haradwaith with his “prototypes” of the mysterious weapon, King Elessar had got the strong impression that there was something Elladan and Elrohir were not telling him. After much nagging, assisted by Queen Arwen, he eventually got the truth out of them; his dear friend Legolas had disappeared into another world through some black arts, and Galadriel had persuaded his foster brothers not to tell him of this fact. In the 90 or so years Aragorn had known the twins, he had never been this angry with them. His anger had not dwindled on the ride to Lothlorien (a journey which had startled and shocked his closest advisers, with the exception of Faramir; they could not comprehend why the King would suddenly up and leave as if he were still an itinerant ranger). 

Mary Sue could hear him shouting in a most un-regal manner at Lady Galadriel, apparently incandescent with rage. As usual, Celeborn was playing the diplomat and trying to calm him down sufficiently for them to be able to discuss the situation in a more constructive way. However, so far his efforts were failing, because Galadriel had just confessed that the arts which had sent Legolas into another world were not some mysterious black arts of some unknown enemy, but in fact her own botched attempt to set up a bridgehead into the other world before the dangers it posed became too well developed. The situation was only defused by the arrival of Arwen. (Her departure had shocked the King's advisers even more than Aragorn's. Faramir had begun to think they were at risk of spontaneously combusting with disapproval, which made him smile; careening out of the citadel gates at a mad gallop to rush to her husband's aid was just the sort of thing his own wife would do).

At last Aragorn calmed down enough to allow Galadriel to tell him her tale. The invasion of Sues he already knew of. But she explained in far more detail about the world from which they came, and its technological powers. She explained that the “gun” (for this, apparently, was the name of the weapon) that Gimli had copied was but one of the least of the weapons there. And she explained, as best she could, about the i-pad. In addition to tracking down Suethors and disabling them, she had been using it to research other means of travel between the worlds. She had discovered a group who were making far more systematic efforts to move people between worlds. So far she knew of three facts concerning them: they had captured an orc; in turn they had (apparently accidentally) had one of their own people transported to Middle Earth; and finally the name - “Brunwasser Corporation.”

~o~O~o~

“Okay, I think our best bet is to use your story as our starting point,” said Mary Sue. “Did you write any more of it after Legolas disappeared? You know, to try to patch up the mess you'd made?”

“Very perceptive of you,” Galadriel answered in surprise.

“Well, of course I know how you think, because in a way I'm just an offshoot of you. So where did this story go next?”

“I only wrote a short chapter, just to say that Legolas had been found by people who took him in, and a healer cleansed and stitched his arrow wound, then he recovered. By good fortune, one of the people who found him was a learned man who was versed in the arts which would predestine him (eventually) to unearth the secret of travel between worlds. It got read by one person in Bilbao who said she thought it was a bit short on descriptive detail and characterisation.” The Lady of Lorien sounded slightly miffed.

“Yeah, yeah. I don't really care about your reviews, I just want to get a handle on whether we have any details we can use to try to triangulate his position.”

“Well, I did say he'd ended up in a city called Oxford, because that was where Tolkien lived. It seemed appropriate, somehow,” Galadriel said.

“That's something solid at last. Let's try hacking into the Oxfordshire police database. We'll also cross-reference against Brunwasser Corp. And also, since what I've unearthed about Brunwasser so far suggests they're major defence contractors, I'll hack into the Pentagon while I'm at it. That last one should be the easy part; news reports suggest that just about every IT literate teenager in the developed world has had a crack at it at some point, and a fair few have succeeded. The trick is doing it without ending up in Gitmo. And I think I'm pretty much beyond the reach of Homeland Security in Lorien.”

~o~O~o~

It took Galadriel and Mary Sue a couple of days to get anywhere, days which Aragorn and Arwen spent wandering the woods in anxious anticipation, and Haldir spent revelling in the fact that Mary Sue's attention was safely elsewhere. Eventually the geek and her companion reported back _(AN: It is left as an exercise to the reader to decide which one is the geek and which the companion)._

“We think we've traced him, and he's alright,” said Mary Sue. “Brunwasser was the key. They have someone in MI5 pulling the local police's strings.” 

“MI6? Police?” asked Celeborn.

“Spies, and, um, sort of like soldiers who deal with crimes committed within the country. They got the police doing a door-to-door search for someone seen on the canal towpath. Two women were seen helping an injured 'man' along on the relevant date – claimed it was the boyfriend, uh, mellethron, of one of the women. But I've checked the boyfriend's internet activity, and he was online gaming at the time his girlfriend (who, incidentally, is a 'healer') was seen helping this man along the towpath. So we've got a mystery arrival at the right time, people telling porkies to the pigs...”

“What does that mean?” asked Aragorn.

“Telling lies to the police. Who, incidentally, don't seem very bright, as they've apparently bought the two women's story without checking further. We think he's staying with the other woman, because her weekly grocery bill has doubled since the date in question, and recently, someone called Lech Zielony has got a bank card, registered to her address. But again, checking police records, it looks like the passport is a stolen one (so much for anti-money-laundering checks). Would a likeness of someone young, pale-complexioned, with longish blond hair do for Legolas?” 

“That would indeed be a good likeness,” said Aragorn.

“Like Haldir, but prettier,” added Arwen, with a wicked glint in her eye.

“You know what? I'm going to redouble my efforts to find him,” said Mary Sue. “Oh, and Galadriel...”

“' _My Lady_ ',” said Celeborn, pointedly.

“Gladdy,” said Mary Sue, even more pointedly, “Are you sure you're getting the genders of the personal pronouns right in Basque? Only, the woman Legolas is staying with is a quantum cosmologist. I think your 'learned man' is in fact a 'learned woman'.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'She has the most tragic backstory ever.' - soldier, speaking about Colhoun in _Wreck It, Ralph_.
> 
> 'I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that' – _2001, a Space Odyssey_. (Though I think the actual dialogue is a bit more complicated – it's one of those great misquotes like 'Elementary, my dear Watson,” that's taken on a life of its own).
> 
> Cory Doctorow, “Where Characters come from.” - online article in Locusmag.com


	14. This little piggy spotted an inconsistency.

Legolas had gone to work with every intention of giving the cook a stern dressing down for her crude suggestion (and for embarrassing him in front of Helena, not that he was intending to share that part of the experience). The confrontation was not going as planned. He started to complain that he had not done anything along the lines she had suggested, and she simply fixed him with an amused stare.

“You may not have done anything – yet – but that doesn't mean you don't want to,” she chuckled, wagging a finger at him.

“I don't... we're not... it's not like that...,” the normally eloquent prince found himself struggling for words. Cathy gave a bawdy laugh and raised an eyebrow at him.

His brows furrowed into a frown, and he attacked the sink full of pots and pans with rather more vigour than they actually required. For some reason, the image of Helena blushing and looking shy would not leave his mind. Nor the image of her face lit up with laughter only moments later. Nor, most troubling of all, the memory of her fleeting, appraising glance which had sparked their mutual embarrassment in the first place. Legolas banged the pans onto the draining board in frustration. What in the name of Mordor had got into him?

~o~O~o~

A couple of miles away, just south of the city centre, DI Peter Southwell walked down St. Aldates past the warm yellow stone of the walls of Christ Church. He had a couple of things pending, but was held up waiting for other people's input. One case required some lab work back from forensics, and since the government had privatised the forensic service, turn around times had been slow. The other case was on hold till the Crown Prosecution Service got back to him. There was apparently some question as to whether they felt a prosecution was “in the public interest”. (Southwell correctly interpreted this to mean “it's getting to the end of the financial year and we're not sure the budget stretches that far”).

Southwell decided that since he was at a loose end, he could afford to devote a little bit of time to the nagging issue of the witness statements for the mysterious violent attacker supposedly on the loose. He was sure there was something odd there. His route took him over the Thames, before arriving at the solid 1930s frontage of the police station. He walked up the steps of the building, nodding to the desk sergeant as he passed, and took the stairs two at a time to his small, cluttered office.

Contrary to Mary Sue's assessment, Southwell was in reality a very intelligent man. He was also, in the words of DS Pickering, “a bloody tenacious bugger.” He remembered interviewing the other jogger, Dr. Lottie Bennett, and her partner, Dr. Tom Simpson, he of the supposed ankle injury (a geneticist, not a medic, as he recalled). Tom had been a tall young man with short dark hair, Lottie a small, outgoing young woman of Caribbean descent. Both had seemed friendly and open, but their version of events seemed a little too ready, somehow, and matched Dr. Brodie's a bit too precisely, in almost every detail. Southwell liked a little bit of hesitation, forgetfulness, even the odd minor inconsistency in witness statements. Stories that were too neat made him suspicious.

It took him three files of statements from door-to-door enquiries before he found what he was looking for, notes made by a uniform officer. An elderly woman in sheltered accommodation overlooking the canal had seen the two women helping, in fact carrying, a man. But the old woman was very precise in her description. He had not been wearing jogging clothes. Far from it. She said he was in fancy dress - “Errol Flynn as Robin Hood” were her exact words. And according to the witness, he had long blond hair - “so blond it could have been white like mine”. The only things that remotely matched Tom Simpson's appearance were height and build. The man the two girls had been seen with was tall, somewhere between 6' and 6'2”, and skinny, according to the old woman.

He leafed through some more of the case files, and hit upon the other inconsistency. Here he was, with two tall, wiry men, one with short dark hair who had, according to his own admission, been out jogging in tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt, and the other with blond hair, dressed like something out of a Medieval role playing game. Yet the supposedly dangerous man being sought was short, around 5'6”, thick set. He looked again at the documents sent over by the serious crime squad in Reading. The man had attacked two women in a post office in Whitley, before stealing a car. It was the stolen car which had been seen abandoned at the side of the road in Botley, near the centre of Oxford. He read more of the witness statements from the Reading incident. The man was heavily scarred, almost like ritual scarring, had bad teeth, was very muscular, swarthy complexion, spoke no English, only some sort of very guttural language which the witnesses thought might have been eastern European. One described him as “more like a monster than a man.” 

Southwell went out of his office and grabbed a coffee from the nearby machine. He sipped it, hot, weak, crap as usual, and looked out of the grimy window over the roofs of the nearby boatyards. Again, he had the sense that the witness statements were “over-egging the pudding”. The descriptions were unusually precise, far from the muddled, messy partial recollections he was used to. The statements had been scanned and faxed over, and again, there was something odd. The pages of the interviewing officer's notebook seemed strangely free of dog-eared corners, of any scribblings out. They'd been set absolutely square on the scanner, not slammed on the glass at an angle the way he always did when trying to get urgent stuff off to another station. There was also something nagging him about the registration number of the abandoned car. 

He took another sip of the shite that passed for coffee, turning over in his mind where to go next. Finally a name came to him. A uniform constable he used to play Sunday league with, before his knees gave out. Harris – chopper Harris – built like a brick shithouse and as dirty a centre-half as you could ever hope to have behind what he was the first to admit was a pretty crap midfield (and he should know, having spent many a muddy Sunday lumbering up and down the left-wing, despite being right-footed). Harris walked the beat in Whitley. He dug out his phone and gave the man a quick call. There was no reply at the other end so he left a succinct message asking for help, with the case number and interviewing officer's name. Having done that, he returned to his office, reflecting that he now had no excuse not to chase the forensic lab regarding his more urgent case.

~o~O~o~

Lottie had a day off before her night shift. She met Helena for lunch in the University Parks, armed with sandwiches and a carton of orange juice.

“How're things?” she asked.

“Not going too well. I'm still not getting anywhere with Everett-Wheeler theory. It's doubly annoying now I know it works in practice. After all, I've got Legolas staying in my bloody spare room! But I just can't get the theoretical calculations to come out.”

“If you ask me, it seems a waste of a nice bit of totty, keeping him in the spare room.”

“Bloody hell, Lottie, you've got a sodding one-track mind,” Helena said, shaking her head.

“Oh, come on H, even you must have noticed he's effin' gorgeous.”

“Of course he's beautiful, you'd have to be blind not to notice, but then so are the paintings in the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery. But it's not like I want to have sex with any of them. And in case you hadn't noticed, he's a different species. And he's my friend.”

“OK, different species might be a problem,” said Lottie. “But has it ever occurred to you that being friends is actually a bloody good starting point?” she added, for once in her life looking serious. Helena let out a sigh of exasperation.

In the early evening, Lottie recounted the conversation to Tom as she got into her hospital scrubs, ready for her shift.

“De-nial,” drawled Tom, stretching the syllables out. “So much more than just a river in Africa.” Lottie laughed.

~o~O~o~

It was the next day before Harris got the chance to return Southwell's call.

“You were right to think there's something a bit odd about all this. There's no-one of that name on the Reading force, and no case records under that number under our filing system. I took the liberty of popping into the post office while I was on my beat, and asked how things had been. No-one mentioned any attempted armed robbery.”

After he'd ended the call, Southwell dialled another number, a contact in Vehicle Licensing over in Swansea.

By the time he'd finished chasing up his loose ends, he found himself extremely puzzled. He stood at his familiar grimy window, cup of brown shite in hand, reflecting. He had a non-existent crime, with a very precise description of its perpetrator, but a description which sounded more like a pitch for a horror movie than real life. And some mystery persons who had gone to great lengths to fake an incident report for the non-existent crime in order to get him to do some leg-work. And they had the technical wherewithal to make it look as if it had come from the Berkshire Police when they had no record of it (that was another thing: the choice of location – Reading, close enough for the story of a flight in a stolen car to be plausible, but in the neighbouring county so there was less chance of anyone from Oxfordshire Police having met people on the other police force face-to-face). He had a description for someone near the scene of the abandoned car at about the same time, who didn't match the incident report. And he had a person who claimed he actually was the mystery person on the towpath, but bore no resemblance to either description. And he had a vehicle licence that matched a list reserved for undercover Special Branch operations. Several sets of people were lying to him, and he was being used, which he didn't like.

As he turned it over in his mind he came to the conclusion there were three questions he wanted to find answers to. Why were Special Branch pulling his strings? Why had they issued such a precise (and weird) description, when it was nothing like the mysterious blond man on the tow path? And why were a doctor and two respectable Oxford scientists lying to him? He decided the first thing to do was to take a closer look at Helena Brodie. And he was going to do it off-the-books, no paper trail, until he worked out who was pulling his strings. He was far from clear who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.


	15. Haldir X OC?

“What I don't get is why the report from the Berkshire Police Force gave such a detailed description of the short, muscular, scarred creature.” Mary Sue and Galadriel turned in surprise to find Haldir behind them, looking intently at the screen.

“I didn't know you could read English,” said Galadriel. 

“I know, everyone just expects me to shoot things and stand around looking handsome but a bit aloof and brooding. But to be honest, that makes for a pretty dull life,” said Haldir. “Not to mention leaving me far too tempting a target for the slash-ficcers. You know, I felt a real sense of achievement when I worked out the point of the rifling on the gun barrel. Plus it's always a pleasure to get one up on a dwarf. So I thought I'd try to work out a bit more about what on Arda is going on. And that meant learning English. I've been sneaking looks at EFL websites while you've been out.”

“EFL?” asked Galadriel.

“English as a foreign language,” Haldir supplied. “Anyway, I heard Mary Sue saying she'd managed to work out that Brunwasser had spoofed Berkshire Police's IP address, and sent out that description. But why? How did they know something had come through from our world, and why did they think they knew what it looked like?”

“Well, the 'how did they know?' part turns out to be easy to discover,” said Mary Sue. “The research on that is being done at Oxford, and some muppet on an MoD CASE studentship put all the details on an open server. Travel between worlds releases a spike of radiation with a very characteristic energy spectrum. They've got monitoring devices set up to register movements between worlds.”

“And the 'why did they think it looked like some sort of monster' part?”

“I hacked into their e-mails and found an exchange with the British Government's biological and chemical weapons establishment at Porton Down.”

“Not bad,” said Haldir, impressed despite his antipathy towards Mary Sue. “How did you break their secure e-mail server.”

“Some idiot left a memory stick with the access codes on the 18.34 to Salisbury, and a journalist posted them on wikileaks. Honestly, this happens so often you'd think that leaving sensitive material on trains was standard operating procedure as far as the British Civil Service was concerned.”

“So why did they think Legolas would look like, well, from the description, an orc?” the Marchwarden asked.

“Because they've already captured an orc. They've got it in the holding cells at Porton Down. They just assumed they were looking for another one. Obviously the idea of a world with more than one type of sentient being in it is beyond them. Bureaucrats – always lacking in imagination.”

“So they're not actually looking for Legolas?” asked Galadriel.

“Well, it looks like there is one witness statement with a pretty accurate description of him, but so far it looks like the police haven't noticed the inconsistencies.” If Mary Sue had a weakness as an intelligence analyst, it was underestimating the opposition. Sadly, that was a pretty big weakness in her line of work “But there's one other interesting detail I've managed to unearth. They've lost one of their people in the other direction. Someone, somewhere in Middle Earth, is holding a technical specialist from Porton Down prisoner.”

“What's the betting that's where Akhtamesh got the 'gun' from,” said Haldir.

“You are more than just a pretty boy, aren't you?” said Mary Sue. Haldir scowled at her. “Ooh, I love it when you get cross.”

“Piss off,” said Haldir, in English.

~o~O~o~

“You've done what?” said Celeborn in dismay.

“I've sent Haldir and Mary Sue to meet up with Gimli in the Haradwaith. Gimli needs to know about the prisoner Akhtamesh has captured, and if possible, release him and bring him to us.”

“But Haldir _and_ Mary Sue?”

“Well, Haldir needs back-up, Mary Sue can explain the technical details to Gimli in more depth than he can, and I thought a couple travelling together might attract less attention. Don't worry, I impressed upon them the importance of not letting their personal antipathy get in the way of their quest,” answered Galadriel. “I don't think they'll actually kill each other.”

“Madam, you are not usually this slow-witted,” said Celeborn.

“Slow-witted? What are you talking about my Lord?”

“Come on, my Lady. You're the one who has spent the last three months reading fanfic obsessively. What normally happens when you take a couple of attractive people who continually spark off each other, nay, even appear on the surface to detest one another, and put them in close proximity for a significant amount of time, alone, with the added element of danger to heighten their emotional response?” asked Celeborn.

“Oh, B... eren and Luthien,” said Galadriel.

“Precisely,” said Celeborn.

~o~O~o~

“Ow ow ow ow ow,” wailed Mary Sue.

“What now,” said Haldir, irritation obvious for his companion to hear.

“If I'd wanted to ride a frikkin' horse for this long, Gladdy should have given me a back-story where I was raised on a ranch in Texas. My ass is gonna be numb for a week.”

“In which case, you should be hardened to travel by the time we reach the Haradwaith,” said Haldir, dryly. 

“I hate you!”

“That, I can live with,” said Haldir.

Some hours later, dusk fell and they pitched camp. The nights were still cold, so Haldir gathered brushwood and lit a fire. To his irritation, Mary Sue made no effort to help. He shot a rabbit which he skinned, gutted and hung from a spit above the fire. Mary Sue watched, distaste evident on her face.

“I thought you southern types were into hunting and shooting,” sneered Haldir.

“Only the ones in the NRA. And if they got their ideal world, they'd probably be more interested in shooting liberals than rabbits. Personally I prefer to get my rabbit from the supermarket.”

“Fine, you don't need to eat it, there's lembas in the saddle bags.”

“Hey, my hunger's currently on a higher setting than my squeamishness,” Mary Sue replied. She tucked into the chunk of roast rabbit Haldir passed to her, nibbling a bit of lembas for good measure. 

“You know, I'd love some grits, or corn dogs, or a big bowl of gumbo,” Mary Sue said with longing. “And you know what's really stupid? That's all part of Galadriel's random bits of back story for me. So I know all the words, but I don't know what they stand for. I'm sitting here craving food, and I don't even know what it tastes like. I'm just this rootless non-person with no past. I'm not real. Sometimes being a Mary Sue really sucks.” She blinked a couple of times, gave a loud sniff and wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve. Haldir looked at her, feeling something almost akin to pity.

“Well, you've got a present and a future, and they're real,” he said quietly. Then added, a bit more forcefully, but with a hint of a smile, “Tell me you're not going soft on me.”

~o~O~o~

Of course, the slight rapprochement between Haldir and Mary Sue did not last long. By the next day, they were back to sniping at each other. He delighted in pointing out that she was not coping well with roughing it in the wilds. She flipped between treating him like some kind of barbarian for being so at home living off the land (the Crocodile Dundee references went over his head) and pretending to come on to him, just to get a rise out of him. They spent the day after in mulish silence, refusing to speak to each other at all.

The silence had the potential to last for days, and would have done, had they not run into the remnants of an orc troop. They were crossing an open stretch of moorland, with no cover, when Haldir yelled.

“Yrch!”

“What?” asked Mary Sue.

“Orcs. Here, catch.” Haldir threw her a long dagger in its sheath.

“I don't know what the hell to do with this,” said Mary Sue.

“Well, improvise,” hissed Haldir, loosing a hail of arrows. All but one found their mark, and five out of nine orcs fell, evening the odds a bit. By this time the orcs were almost upon them. Haldir unsheathed his sword. He felled the first with a single swipe, but the next two showed signs of acting as a team, keeping him dancing first one way then the other. The third started to try to outflank Haldir and come at him from behind. Haldir parried and orc number two finally succumbed to a sharp thrust under his guard. With the back swing, Haldir took off the head of number three, only to turn to find himself face-to-face with the remaining orc, totally wrong footed. He looked as the orc readied himself for the coup de grace, knowing that he had neither time nor space to bring his sword into position to parry, when suddenly the orc's eyes went glassy and a spurt of blood fell from his lips. He pitched forward, falling just to the side of Haldir. The elf looked in surprise. Protruding from just beneath the orc's armpit, angled down into his heart, was the dagger he'd tossed to Mary Sue.

Mary Sue stumbled away from the body, fell to her knees and retched into the heather.


	16. Archery: martial art or fanfic cliche?

**“I'll sing to him, each spring to him, and worship the trousers that cling to him, bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I.” (Rogers and Hart, _Bewitched_ – my favourite performance being, of course, the one by Ella Fitzgerald, for its incredible portrayal of female desire and impeccable comic timing).**

Helena was trying to work, but failing. She stared out of her office window at the crazy coloured brickwork on the wall opposite, wondering (not for the first time) why the theoretical physics department had to have such an excellent view of the most over-the-top excesses of Victorian architecture, rather than one of the beautiful buildings most people associated with Oxford. Her attention kept drifting from the multi-dimensional membranes she was meant to be thinking about, back to Lottie's words. Given that they had been dumped together by random chance, and now shared a house due to a lack of other options, why did she think of Legolas as a friend, and what did he think of her? What did she actually know about him? In her mind, she started to compile a list.

He was good company. She had not felt lonely since his arrival. He was intelligent, had learned to play a mean game of chess (he now beat her about one time in four), had a sharp wit which could tend towards the sarcastic at times, though never to the extent of being unkind. He was also thoughtful (her mind drifted back to the orange juice hangover cure) and remarkably easy to share a house with. Since starting work in the café, he had become a reasonably good cook, and much to her surprise, he was happy to take turns with the cooking. This had come as a pleasant revelation; she thought of Tolkien's world in Medieval terms (though her information remained second hand; she still hadn't got round to reading the books). She had assumed he would have various prejudices about appropriate roles for women, but in fact he seemed to treat everyone he met equally, with quiet courtesy, regardless of sex, race or background. In fact, thinking about this and his insistence on paying his share of the rent and food bills out of his meagre wages, she realised he was driven by a seemingly innate sense of fairness. He was also undeniably brave, and a frighteningly good fighter, as the incident in Stockwell had shown her. That incident had taught her that he could get angry, but that even when angry he did not lash out, and was constrained by the same sense of fairness which prevented him behaving unreasonably. He was not the sort to hold a grudge, and it seemed would rather patch things up than sulk.

Suddenly her mind turned in an unexpected direction, gingerly, as she remembered from childhood when she could not prevent herself from probing a loose tooth with her tongue, even though she didn't enjoy the sensation. What, she asked herself, would she think of him if he were human? _Way out of your league_. The answer came in an instant, and she rapidly withdrew, shutting the door to that corner of her mind as firmly as she could. She returned to the issues of multi-dimensional geometry with a sense of grim determination.

Helena fitted in another couple of hours work, then got up from her desk, stretching and circling her head to ease the cramps in her neck. She locked the door to her office, and turned, nearly bumping into someone. With a start, she realised it was Tony Evans, the post-doc funded by the MoD.

“Hi Helena, working late?,” he said.

“Yes, you know how it is, I've hit a bit of a brick wall with what I'm working on at the moment,” Helena replied.

“Bummer,” Tony said. “I think we all go through phases like that, though.” He smiled. Helena couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something about the smile that made her uncomfortable. She was thrown completely out of kilter by his next words.

“Helena, I've been wondering, would you be interested in dinner some time? High table at St. John's?”

“Umm, that... Err,” Helena was speechless.

“Just a friendly dinner as colleagues,” said Tony, smoothly, cutting off her escape route. Helena felt outflanked. Her instincts were telling her to run and hide, telling her that the offer was anything but 'just friendly', that if she accepted she would have enormous difficulty shaking him off. Coupled to that was the knowledge that the man was involved with Brunwasser, though how deeply, she didn't know. But decades of social schooling in being polite, in avoiding confrontation, were denying her the words to escape from the situation.

“Well, a friendly dinner talking about our work might be good....,” Helena said, while a voice in her head screamed _Why didn't you just say no?_

“How about next Thursday? Dinner's at 7.15, sherry in the SCR beforehand. I could meet you at the porters' lodge at 6.45 if that would be OK?” said Tony.

“Uh, can I get back to you. I know I've got some dates written up on the calendar at home, so I should check,” Helena stalled.

“Fair enough, but I'll hold you to dinner at some stage, even if next Thursday turns out to be no good,” replied Tony, somehow conveying underneath the superficial politeness that he was not going to be put off. Helena felt her distaste increase, and wondered how she had been so thoroughly outmanoeuvred. She sensed that he was a bully, the sort who hid his bullying beneath a veneer of urbanity which made it even harder to challenge. And Helena hated bullies.

“Well, I'll get back to you,” she said. “Anyway, I must be getting off home.” Suddenly she had an inspiration. “Lech will be wondering where I've got to.” And she darted out of the door. _Please let him put two and two together and make five,_ she thought.

~o~O~o~

Helena was taken aback by the sight that greeted her. Jonathan and Legolas were sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by a positive armoury of weapons. Legolas's bow lay on the carpet, arrows carefully set out on a tea towel, with a knife and ball of twine lying beside them where the elf had left them after making repairs to the fletches. He now held a leather strop in his left hand, right hand carefully whetting one of a pair of long daggers. The dagger was slightly curved, with a jewelled hilt and gold inlay on the flat surface of the blade. The cutting edge was honed to a razor-sharp finish. Helena watched Legolas's long, elegant fingers finish their task. Jonathan looked up with a bright smile.

“Hi Helena,” he said, cheerfully. “Are you free tomorrow?”

“I was thinking of doing some work,” said Helena, feebly.

“Aw, come on, it's a Saturday. You know I've got a couple of house mates. Well, Sally's really into historical re-enactment, and she's got a replica of a 15th century longbow. She's planning on heading down to the archery club to do a bit of target practice with some of her friends, and when I mentioned 'Lech' here, she said to bring him along.”

“Sally? Is she the historian?” asked Helena.

“No, the economist. The historian's really snooty about historical re-enactment, says he doesn't know why they don't go the whole hog and just play dungeons and dragons. He's a complete snob. But Sally's really nice.”

“Say 'yes', Helena,” said Legolas, smiling at her. “You spend far too much time working. A day in the sunshine will do you good.”

“Sunshine? It's late March!” scoffed Helena, then saw Legolas look quite crestfallen. “It's OK, I'm only joking, I'd love to come.” Helena left them to their toys, and went to make tea. She returned, mug in hand, and sat down on the couch.

“Something a bit weird just happened,” she said, slightly hesitantly. “I just got asked to dinner by Tony Evans.”

“Evans? The little shit in your department who works for Brunwasser?” asked Jonathan. “I hope you said 'no'.”

“Well, it was one of those really weird situations where I didn't want to say 'yes', but somehow I got cornered, and I still don't quite know how it happened. I've stalled as best I could, but I can't quite see how to get out of it if he really pushes things.”

“Tell him to eff off? Usually works for me,” said Jonathan. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Legolas's grip on the knife tighten, his knuckles turning pale. _Interesting_ , Jonathan thought in passing, before turning his attention back to the matter in hand. “Seriously, Helena, the man's bad news. Matt and I heard the head honcho from Brunwasser openly talking about eliminating people, and Evans just went along with it, brown-nosed him.”

“In which case, maybe I should go, see if I can get any information out of him,” Helena said.

“No!” Helena and Jonathan turned to Legolas, whose tone was unusually sharp. “You should not put yourself in danger.”

“What, you mean the way you didn't put yourself in danger in Stockwell?” said Helena, with a slight edge to her voice.

“That's different, we were already in danger, I got us out of it,” Legolas replied.

“Actually, I'm not sure this is that different,” said Helena. “We know the people from Brunwasser know you're in this world somewhere, we know they're looking for you, and sooner or later they're going to find you. And they're a lot more dangerous than a bunch of spotty teenagers in a stairwell, no disrespect to the clinical way you took all of them down. But I think maybe sometimes attack is the best form of defence, and I should go and try to find out more about what Evans is up to.”

“But I sense from the way Jonathan is talking that this man is very dangerous.”

“I'll be careful. But I feel like I have to give this a try,” said Helena, glancing over with a slightly defiant tilt to her chin.

“You had better be,” said Legolas, smiling despite himself at Helena's show of determination. He weighed his dagger in his hand, assessing its feel. He looked at Helena, one eyebrow raised. “If he did anything to you, I would have to kill him, and then we might have another inconvenient visit from your police friends.”

“So there you have it, Helena: proceed with caution,” said Jonathan. “Because much as he'd like us to think otherwise, I don't think Legolas is joking.”

~o~O~o~

Denial is an interesting state. Some people manage to live in it for an entire lifetime, sometimes due to a curious lack of introspection, sometimes driven there by events too traumatic to handle any other way. However, for those for whom it is only a temporary state, it tends to be a precarious one, like a house of cards, waiting the slightest breath of wind to bring it tumbling down. For Helena, it was quite literally a breath of wind that was her undoing.

The next afternoon was one of those glorious, warm, early spring days. The sky was a cloudless blue, the spring grass and new leaves a vivid green. Legolas stood at the end of the field, adjusting the tension on his bow, sighting down the range towards the distant targets, checking the flights on his arrows. He looked blissfully happy, totally absorbed in what he was doing. Jonathan's housemate, Sally, stood beside him, a replica of a longbow in her hand. She was comparing notes; her longbow made of yew in the traditional English way, a bow which would have been familiar to Henry's soldiers at Agincourt, against Legolas's recurved bow, a present from the Lady of Lorien, which had served him faithfully through the War of the Ring. Jonathan and Helena watched from the sidelines, feeling slightly surplus to requirements.

Legolas was wearing a pair of Tom's old jeans and a thin, pale green cotton shirt. A breeze caught the thin material, moulding it against his back. Every muscle was outlined as the elf drew back the bow string. Helena stood transfixed by the lines of his shoulders and back. He had the muscles of someone who had earned them through a life of physical effort, not the vanity of the odd session in a gym. Helena found herself noting every detail, the way his body narrowed to his waist and hips, his long slender legs, the sinews in his forearms, his blond hair blowing loose in the gentle wind. For a moment she stopped breathing. 

Helena had had boyfriends in the past, though none that she had ever become intimate with. She had not felt the need. But now, for the first time, she found herself carried away by a wave of desire. She felt as though she were adrift in a stormy sea with no experience to guide her. She was frightened by her physical response; she could feel the blood surging round her body, her pulse beating in unanticipated places. She wanted to reach out and touch him, run her hands down the muscles of his back and hold his hips, pull him towards her. She wanted him to touch her in return, to feel him respond to her touch. She felt an aching emptiness, an emptiness which could only be filled by having him draw her close against him. And in the very moment she realised all of this, she was pierced with utter despair. For in the instant she realised how she felt towards him, she felt as if she also knew with certainty that he could not feel the same way about her.

She looked on as Legolas slung his quiver across his back. He and Sally exchanged a few words, then he took aim. Helena saw his brows furrow in concentration; she found herself willing her mind to capture the image and store it forever. With a fluid grace and speed that was breathtaking, Legolas fired half a dozen arrows in quick succession. Five formed a tight cluster in the centre of the farthest target, the sixth an inch to the side of the main group, though still comfortably in the bullseye. Legolas shook his head.

“I am out of practice,” he said, with a rueful smile.

“That's you when you're _out_ of practice?” said Sally, in tones of amazement.

Southwell watched the archery display from the shade of a tree some yards away. Early morning had found him parked a discreet distance from Helena's front door. He watched as a young man rang the doorbell at about 9.30, and couldn't believe his luck when first Helena, then a tall, slender young man with startlingly blond, long hair had emerged. The blond man had a long bundle wrapped in canvas slung across his back. Southwell had followed them, leaving a comfortable gap between them, pausing now and then to look in shop windows as if just out for a Saturday morning stroll, before eventually arriving at the archery field. He didn't realise that Legolas had in fact “made” him almost immediately; Legolas, however, had chosen simply to keep a watchful eye on the situation to see how it unfolded.

For his part, Southwell found the blond man's skills with the bow both impressive and informative. The DI was in his fifties, headed for retirement, and had been a soldier before he joined the police. After returning from the Falklands, he had kept up his marksmanship for a while by going to the local pistol club, before pistol shooting was banned. He remembered a distinctive difference in style between himself and his fellow veterans, compared to the civilians. Some of the civvies were very good shots, but somehow, they never shot as if they meant it. The blond, on the other hand, handled the bow as if he meant it. He pushed himself from the tree, and walked over to the group of people.

“Good morning, Dr. Brodie,” he said. “It's a pleasure to bump into you again.” He turned to the others and smiled. “I'm Peter Southwell, from Thames Valley Police. I had occasion to chat to Dr. Brodie about a case I was pursuing. Only as a witness, of course.”

“Please, call me Helena,” she replied. She slipped back into the role of innocent bystander with nothing to hide. “This is my friend Jonathan Potter, and his friend Sally. And this is my lodger, Lech Zielony. Lech's working here for a bit while he improves his English.” The policeman turned to Legolas.

„Bardzo mi miło. Jak się masz?,” said Southwell.

„W porządku, dziękuję! Dobrze jest spotkać kogoś, kto mówi po polsku,” replied Legolas. „Gdzie nauczyłaś mój język? Znasz go dobrze.” He tried to ignore Helena's look of amazement, which he felt was not helping him maintain his cover story.

“I'm afraid you've rather exhausted my limited knowledge of Polish,” said Southwell, with a polite smile.

“I beg your pardon,” said Legolas. “It was just very exciting for me to hear Polish. I was merely saying hello and asking how you leaned my language?” 

“Ah, well, as you now know, I haven't really, just picked up the odd phrase. That was very impressive shooting, by the way.” 

“Thank you, it's kind of you to say that. Though in truth I am not at my best.”

“An interesting bow.”

“Yes, I have had it for many years. It was made for me by a good friend. Do you shoot?”  
“Not with a bow and arrow. I used to do a bit of pistol shooting, and of course, used a rifle during my days in the army,” said Southwell. “Excuse me for asking, but one can usually recognise a fellow soldier – you've been in the army too.”

“Yes, for a short time. We have national service in my country,” said 'Lech'.

“A bit more than just exercises, though? You handle yourself like someone who has seen combat.”

“A bit,” said Legolas, wondering how to handle questions for specific details. Fortunately, Southwell took the conversation in a different direction.

“It's a very brave thing to do, to just come and live in another country. How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Since December. It's very nice here, and it's good to learn English. Really, to get anywhere in life, I think I have to be fluent in English.”

“You speak very well, and with very little accent,” said Southwell (adding to himself _And with hardly any hint of the problems with definite articles which normally cause problems for Polish speakers_ ). “Anyway, I feel as if I have taken you away from your archery for long enough.” He turned to the rest of the group. “Nice to meet you again, Helena, Jonathan, Sally.” 

Once he was out of earshot Helena grabbed Legolas by the arm and pulled him to one side.

“Where the hell did you learn Polish?” she said.

“From the BBC website, at nights while you slept. It seemed like a wise precaution in case a situation like this one ever arose. Of course, I'd be in trouble if I ever met a native speaker.” Legolas replied.

“Southwell knows more than he's letting on,” said Helena.

“I think so too, and your look of amazement when I spoke Polish didn't help,” said Legolas.

“Sorry about that.”

“It's OK, it can't be undone now.”

A few streets away, as he headed back towards the town centre, Southwell was struck by a sudden thought. _What sort of a combat background would one have to have had in order to handle a bow and arrow as if one meant it?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That Polish dialogue in full (courtesy of google translate and the BBC languages pages– happy to have it corrected by any native speakers who're reading).
> 
> Southwell: Nice to meet you. How are you?
> 
> Legolas: Fine, thanks. It's good to meet someone who speaks Polish. Where did you learn to speak my language? You speak it well.
> 
> Author's note: wow, the wonders of word processing. I paste some Polish in, and open office recognises it and changes the punctuation style accordingly! The only problem is it now refuses to go back to English punctuation.
> 
> And, as always, przeczytaj i przeglądu (please read and review)!
> 
> Since I first wrote this, a Polish friend has read it! The Polish is very stilted (which is probably what you'd expect) but even more amusingly, in a case of life imitating art and paralleling Galadriel's earlier struggles with Basque, apparently I've used the feminine formal address, so think of it as Legolas calling the DI "My Lady..."


	17. It is a truth universally acknowledged...=

Haldir picked Mary Sue off the ground and helped her to a patch of grass well away from the corpses of the fallen orcs. He gave her the water skin so she could rinse her mouth out, then went back to the scene of the fight and retrieved his dagger, which he cleaned carefully before sheathing it. He retrieved their horses and returned to Mary Sue. She was still shaking. Haldir realised that she was in no fit state to ride. He lifted her onto his own horse, and leapt gracefully onto its back behind her, holding the reins of her horse. 

They rode for several hours. Mary Sue was silent, but this time not because she was sulking. Haldir realised she was still in a state of shock. She had never been in a fight before, much less killed anyone, even an orc. Eventually they halted for the night, and this time Haldir made a fire and prepared a wild fowl he had shot earlier without any complaint.

“Do you want to talk?” he asked, as they finished the meagre meal.

“Not really. I think I just want to sleep.”

Haldir made sure the fire was built up with fresh wood as Mary Sue stretched out on the ground, her cloak wrapped round her. Haldir settled down to keep watch. The night was cold, an east wind cutting across the open grass land. The moon had not yet risen, and even Haldir's sharp eyes could make out little by the starlight. The elf let his mind drift, keeping only a small part of it alert for danger. In the early hours of the morning, he became aware of Mary Sue murmuring in her sleep. She tossed and turned, her mutterings sounding increasingly distressed, then gave out a scream and called his name. Haldir knelt beside her.

“It's alright, you're having a nightmare, I'm right here,” he said.

“I was dreaming. It was so vivid. The orc stabbed you before I could get to him. He ran you through. I had to watch,” she said in a shaky voice.

“But it didn't happen that way, because of you,” Haldir said, laying his hand on her shoulder.

“I can't stop shaking, and this wind isn't helping.”

“Here,” said Haldir, and lay down beside her, stretching his cloak over both of them. He rolled over and lay with his back against hers. Mary Sue reflected that she could have used a hug, but she supposed a bit of shared body warmth was better than nothing. The two of them settled for the rest of the night, Mary Sue falling asleep again, Haldir drifting into the dream-like state in which elves customarily rest.

Haldir must have been more tired than he realised, for he actually drifted out of consciousness. He was startled back to full alertness by riders circling them in the half light before the dawn. The riders were armoured, their bright helmets glinting pale in the grey of the early morning. They carried spears and had drawn swords. As one, they wheeled to face the two elves. The leader lifted off his helm to reveal long fair hair and beard. He took in the two elves, stirring beneath the cloak.

“I see you, elf woman, wrapped in your elf man's cloak. I wish you much happiness,” he said, with a chuckle. His Westron was heavily accented.

“Oh shit,” said Haldir in Sindarin. “This can't be happening to me.”

“What's going on?” asked Mary Sue.

“We just got married.”

“WHAT THE FRICKIN' HECK?”

“That's how they do things in Rohan. We just got caught together under my cloak. They've declared us married.”

“That can't be legal, surely?”

“I'm afraid the marriage customs of the realm you happen to be when you get married in are considered binding everywhere else in Middle Earth.”

“Nooooo...” Mary Sue wailed. “I've watched daytime TV. Get married and you can kiss goodbye to intimacy for the rest of your life. We're never gonna have sex ever again. And we never even had it in the first place.” Haldir shrugged.

“Every cloud has a silver lining,” he said.

~o~O~o~

Anborn drew the dark cloak found him, pulling the hood forwards to shade his face. He slipped through the formal garden, using the darkness beneath the trees. He stepped between the pillars to the colonnaded walk beyond, and crept silently along the wall till he reached the door Akhtamesh had gone through moments earlier. With deft fingers, he picked the lock, feeling for the moment the tumblers tripped, and gently pushed it open. He hastened down the dark corridor beyond, just able to see his way by the traces of light penetrating the elaborately carved screens of the clerestory windows above. At the end of the corridor were double doors, and through them he could hear the murmur of voices. Just to one side was a winding staircase, and he followed it upwards, and found himself on a balcony overlooking a large, high ceilinged room. Anborn watched Akhtamesh and his lieutenant as they talked in low voices.

“Is everything prepared?” asked Akhtamesh.

“The elements and compounds requested are in place.”

“Good. Go and open the doors in readiness.” The young soldier strode to the far end of the room and opened the door at the far end. A tall woman in a flowing gown of silk entered, followed by two attendants. Akhtamesh made a low obeisance.

“We are ready for you to begin the ceremony, my Lady. The substances you requested are on the table, set out as you asked,” he said, bowing. This in itself was surprising. Anborn had seen Akhtamesh be dismissive of women at best, more often outright abusive. To see a display of respect was unprecedented. Anborn looked more closely at the woman. She was of indeterminate age, slender, with long dark hair, an angular face with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose, her bare arms covered with sinuous tattoos. In her hand she carried a staff.

“Bring me the bait,” she said, in a deep, sensuous voice. Akhtamesh gestured to his lieutenant, who left, only to return moments later accompanied by four slaves, dragging an orc bound in chains. The orc struggled against his restraints, snarling and spitting.

“The bindings will arouse suspicion,” said the woman. She strode over to the orc and struck it hard across the jaw with her staff. The creature slumped unconscious to the floor. She motioned to the slaves, who removed the chains. At a nod from Akhtamesh, they retreated through the door by which they had entered.

“Let us begin,” she said. She walked with feline grace to the table and picked up a glass phial of powder. Carefully, she sprinkled a circle round the unconscious body of the orc. Taking a second phial, she made another, smaller circle beside the first. She raised her hands above her head, then, in a fluid movement, brought the staff crashing down onto the tiled floor. She began to intone. Anborn shuddered; the language was the Black Speech he had not heard uttered since the Battle before the Black Gates, when all seemed lost and the hopes of the free peoples of Middle Earth felt as though they were to be dashed forever. The circle round the orc started to glow, pale flames licking upwards from the powder.

The woman began to chant once more, and the second circle burst into flames. Within the centre of the circle, a shadowy, ghost-like figure took shape. It clawed at the flames encircling it, seeking to escape the confines of the sorcery constraining it, then emitted a shrill, unearthly shriek. It was all Anborn could do to stop himself crying out. He felt his courage desert him, felt fear chill him to the marrow. He had heard that shriek before: it was the shriek of a Nazgul. The eerie, evil chanting continued, rhythmic, relentless. The flames licked higher and higher, but somehow the powder was not consumed.

Suddenly there was a blinding green flash and a cracking noise louder than the most intense thunderclap Anborn had ever heard. Then a thick silence which enveloped the room like a blanket of evil. Anborn steeled himself to look. Both the orc and the wraith had vanished, where, he knew not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to ZeesMuse for letting me use her Rohirric marriage traditions (as set out in _Rider of the Mark_ ). If you've not read it, and the others in the same sequence, you really should because they're brilliant (though they are rated M for a reason).
> 
> Note: I know Galadriel has turned Mary Sue into an elf, but the idea is that she started off human, hence she still sleeps.


	18. De Nile, Part II

Days in the café had a rhythm that Legolas was getting accustomed to. He would arrive just before 8.00, in time for the breakfast rush. By not long after 9.00 things would go quiet and he could get the washing up out of the way before people started to drift in for coffee. Things stayed busy till after lunch, then there would be another rush mid afternoon. He would finish up just after 5.00. When things got dull, he gained a wry sense of amusement from reflecting on what Gimli would make of his current situation. He dreaded to think what his father would make of it.

This morning, Cathy was having a quick cup of tea with her oldest daughter and daughter's friend in the lull after breakfast. The conversation, as usual, was bawdy in the extreme. It was definitely one of those times when Legolas wished his hearing was not so accute. He found their discussion slightly confusing, fascinating in an embarrassing sort of way, and way outside his experience. The friend, Tasha, had just 'dumped' her latest man (Legolas was somewhat disconcerted by the idea of swapping partners at frequent intervals). She was telling the others about the man's shortcomings in intimate, and to Legolas's mind, excruciating detail. Although Legolas still sometimes struggled with more colloquial phrases, even he got the reference to “pencil dick.” Though he foundered somewhat with the next bit of the discussion. Apparently there was something (Legolas didn't recognise the word) that the ex-boyfriend couldn't find with both hands and a flashlight. Probably not even if you gave him a map and compass as well. The women laughed raucously.

After another 10 minutes or so, Cathy's daughter and her friend left to go shopping. Cathy turned her attention to prepping the salad for lunch. Legolas paused in his dish washing duties, and steeled himself mentally.

“I fear I'm going to regret asking this, but I don't want to embarrass myself by asking Helena...”

Cathy howled with laughter, and explained to him. Legolas turned bright red.

“Trust me, one day your lass will thank me for this conversation,” she said.

“She's not my lass,” Legolas growled.

“Yeah, right, and bears don't crap in the woods,” came the rejoinder.

~o~O~o~

In the late evening, Legolas let himself into the flat, and walked into the living room. Helena was sitting at the table in a pool of light from the desk lamp, surrounded by papers as usual. The rest of the room was shrouded in shadow. Even before she turned round, Legolas could sense the dejection in the set of her shoulders. She looked at him, a frown of exhaustion on her face, then rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I just don't seem to be getting anywhere with these calculations. I know how desperately you need me to find a way to get you home, but I just can't seem to find it.” She turned back, letting her head drop onto her forearms. Legolas felt a wave of sadness wash over him, almost as though he could feel her emotions. He walked over to her, and let his hand rest on her shoulder, stroking it gently. 

“You are doing the best that you can,” he said. She raised her head. Acting on instinct, without conscious thought, Legolas took her hand and gently drew her to her feet, then wrapped his arms around her, gently cradling her head against his shoulder with one hand, and rubbing her back with the other. He was filled with a sudden wonder at how small and fragile she felt, and with compassion at how lost and upset she looked. He wanted to convey that he understood, that he too felt helpless, but that there was hope that all would be well. But the words would not come to him. Instead he murmured soft shushing noises into her hair.

They stood motionless for several minutes, Helena taking comfort from his warmth and touch. Strands of his hair brushed her cheek like soft silk, and she breathed in the smell of him, a scent of spring woods and high moorland heath. She could feel the strength in his arms; she felt protected, as if she was in the safest place in the world. Mingled with this was a feeling of belonging, as though she had come home after a long journey. She nestled closer and lost track of time. Eventually, with a deep sigh, she lifted her head off his shoulder. Their eyes met. Helena was filled with a sudden tension, and she swallowed. She was suddenly acutely aware of the deep blue of his eyes and the shape of his mouth. Legolas looked at her intently, and moved his face closer to hers. Helena started to open her mouth to say something, and found she couldn't. She felt his breath on her lips.

Suddenly she drew back and wriggled out of his grasp. She retreated to the kitchen, and stood with her back to him, staring sightlessly out of the window into the darkness beyond. Legolas followed her to the entrance of the kitchen and stopped, a few paces from her. He could hear her breathing hard, as if she'd been running. Her back was rigid, her hands clutched the counter in front of her.

“Helena...,” he began to say. She turned, and for a moment he felt he was looking deep into her soul, seeing sadness and longing there. Then as if she had put a mask in place, her face assumed a neutral expression. _She could teach even an Elf a thing or two about looking impassive,_ Legolas thought.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “I've let work get on top of me. I feel a bit better now. Let's have a cup of tea, and something to eat,” she said. Legolas couldn't help but give a rueful laugh.

“You would have made a good hobbit,” he said in a wry tone. “There's no problem that can't be solved by eating.” He watched as she went about the business of putting the kettle on, setting out mugs.

~o~O~o~

Southwell had been a police officer for long enough to know that often the tricky cases turned out to be 95% hard graft and 5% lucky break. Even knowing this, he was totally blindsided by the lucky break in this case. It came in the form of a phone call from the son of his closest, and sadly now deceased, friend.

He and Pat had served in the Falklands together. Like all wars, its aftermath took a huge toll on the veterans. His own marriage had foundered on the rocks of his inability to deal with his emotions; flashbacks from the sinking of the Sheffield, visions of burning oil on a roiling sea, memories he was unable to share with the woman he loved, and which drove wedges between them until they were so far apart they might as well have been on different continents. Pat had died of a heart attack aged only 50, a heart attack Southwell blamed in part on the unresolved stresses of combat. In the years that followed, Southwell had stayed in contact with Pat's son, Steve. Not unusually, Steve had followed in his father's footsteps and gone into the army himself. Southwell viewed this with a mixture of ironic sadness and pride, a sense of vicarious fatherhood borne of feelings for his dead friend and grief that he had never had children himself.

The phone call was a peculiar one. 

“Pete, can we meet up? It's something important, but I can only really talk about it face-to-face.” The strain in Steve's voice was obvious.

“When?” asked Southwell. “Would tomorrow sometime suit you? Where do you want to meet up?”

“Actually, I was thinking more in terms of coming round to yours. Now.”

“But it's nearly 11.00,” said Southwell.

“Yeah, but I really need to talk to you now. And I need somewhere to crash.”

“Okay. How long will it take you to get here?”

“Five, maybe ten minutes,” said Steve.

It was more like quarter of an hour when Steve arrived. Southwell took his coat and ushered him into the kitchen. Having offered him the choice between a mug of tea or a beer, he settled down on a stool at the counter to listen to what Steve had to say.

“You remember last time I was on leave I popped by on my way to London, and we had a few beers and a natter about some of your cases. You mentioned the case where you had the three witness statements that didn't match – the scientist with the sprained ankle, the short scarred monster and the tall blond bloke. And you wondered where the incredibly detailed description of the monster had come from.”

“Yeah,” said Southwell.

“Well, I might have something for you. I bumped into a guy I used to know, Eddy O'Brien, he was one of the instructors at Hereford when I first joined the Regiment. He must be coming up for 40 now, bought himself out and went into the private sector. Works for an American defence contractor called Brunwasser.”

“I think I've read about them in the papers. Rarely anything good.”

“Well, they're involved in some sort of public-private sector cooperative thing, based at Porton Down. Something it would appear they don't want the MoD plod getting close to, issues about unlawful imprisonment, I'm guessing – they've got some sort of prison block there, and they're using private contractors as guards. And they've got a prisoner who matches your monster's description – Eddy thinks he might not even be human.”

“Sounds like old soldier's tall tales to me,” said Southwell.

“I'd have thought that too, but O'Brien always used to be rock steady. And he seemed genuinely scared.”

“Can you get me a meeting with O'Brien?” asked Southwell.

“I'll try,” said Steve, “but I get the impression he was so scared he was planning on doing a runner. And when one of ours decides to disappear, they stay disappeared.”

~o~O~o~

Legolas and Matt slowed to a gentle jog. Matt looked at the elf quizzically.

“OK, you've hardly said a word in the last three quarters of an hour. Now I know you're quite reserved, but you're not usually entirely silent. Want to tell me what's up?”

Legolas looked at Matt. From the look on his face, he was weighing up his words carefully.

“How do mortals fall in love, knowing that if their love lasts, one of them will die first?” he asked.

“Because biologically we can't help ourselves? Because we think it's better to have a time with the one we love, then grieve, than not to be with them at all?” Matt waited for a response, then, when none was forthcoming, said “Is this an abstract philosophical question, or did you have someone in particular in mind?” There was still no answer. The two slowed to a walk, a minute or so passing in silence, before Matt spoke again.

“Jonathan's been trying to educate me, you know, teach me poetry and stuff,” he said. “You know how he's always teasing me about being an illiterate scientist. There's a poem he read to me recently. I can only remember fragments, but he talks about the eventual death of his lover. 'The grave's a fine and silent place/ But none, I think, do there embrace.' The bit that really stuck in my mind was this: 'Thus, though we cannot make our sun stand still/ Yet we will make him run.' And that's it, I guess. Filling the days with so much that you make the sun run to keep up with you.” Legolas smiled, a gentle smile tinged with sadness. Matt waited for some sort of response, but none came. They were nearly back at Matt's flat before the man spoke again.

“Elves must sometimes have to face this. You can be killed in battle, can't you?” he asked.

“Yes, and it is shattering for the spouse who is left behind. Sometimes the one left to grieve will simply fade away and die, sometimes they go on to face an eternity of loss. It seems to me that neither is a fate that you would choose if gifted with foresight, assuming you had a choice,” Legolas said. “But we do not marry our own kind knowing that we will be killed in battle, even though we know it be a possibility.” 

“Knowing for sure something _will_ happen versus acknowledging that it _might_. Yes, I can see that that's a big difference,” said Matt. 

“Nor am I sure we have a choice when it comes to realising we have met the one we love,” Legolas added.

“Can I ask something? You don't have to answer, and it certainly won't go any further if you do. But we're talking about Helena, aren't we?” There was another long pause.

“Mmm,” said Legolas, non-commitally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem is _To His Coy Mistress_ , by Andrew Marvell. I've deliberately quoted from memory because that's what Matt is doing, and it also gets me round issues of copyright of any particular scholarly edition of the work (the original is of course way out of copyright). 
> 
> Hereford, the Regiment (with a capital 'R') – Steve and Eddy are SAS (equivalent of special forces). MoD plod – the Ministry of Defence police force.
> 
>  
> 
> Irakurri eta berrikusi. (That's Basque for “please read and review”, by the way, though if Galadriel's experiences are anything to go by, it may actually translate as “go kiss an orc.”)


	19. A single barrel, out of bond

“OK, I have a plan,” said Lottie. “So cunning you could put a tail on it...”

“This is so not a good idea,” muttered Tom.

“No, my birthday, my rules.” The doorbell rang. Lottie went to the door and found Matt and Jonathan there. 

“Happy birthday, gorgeous,” said Matt and gave her a kiss. “Helena and Legolas here yet?”

“We are now,” said Helena's voice from behind her. “Happy birthday, Lottie,” she added, and gave her a hug.

“So, what's the line up for tonight's festivities?” asked Matt.

“Pizza, cake and beer. A lot of beer,” said Lottie, gesturing towards the barrel of ale resting in the corner. Legolas smiled. In fact, it was almost a smirk. 

“And,” Tom added, “a handicapping system.” He produced two half pint glasses and three pint glasses.

“We seem to be missing a glass,” said Legolas, intrigued as to where this was going.

“This,” said Tom, putting a huge glass on the table, “is a German beer stein I got at the Munich beer festival a couple of years ago. And this,” adding a small tumbler and a large green bottle, “is a bottle of Laphroaig. Only 10 years old. But still bloody good. The rules are simple. The girls drink halves, the men drink pints, and the elf drinks German beer steins with double whisky chasers.” 

“I can do pints,” said Lottie in an outraged voice. Tom produced an extra pint glass. Legolas had an uncomfortable flashback to a thousand years earlier, when he, Elrohir and Elladan had liberated some Dorwinion wine from his father's cellars. It was going to be a long night.

Several hours later Legolas felt slightly unsteady. He set his empty beer glass on the windowsill and glanced across the room at Helena. She was laughing at something Lottie had said, eyes sparkling, head thrown back. She was wearing a deep red top against which her brown hair fell in waves. The neckline was not particularly low, but low enough to show her collar bones, and Legolas suddenly found himself wondering what it would be like to run his fingers along them, to trace the line of her neck with his lips. He shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it. Somehow, without consciously deciding to, he found himself moving over to where she was sitting.

He flopped onto the couch beside Helena, his movements rather less coordinated than usual. Helena shut her eyes for a moment, wondering how on earth she was going to avoid letting anything of her feelings show, especially after this much alcohol. She could feel the warmth from his body against her arm, his leg brushing hers.

“How much have you had to drink?” she asked.

“Seven, maybe eight of those big glasses and the whisky to go with it,” he answered. “I am beginning to feel a little odd, I must admit.”

“You're going to feel rough tomorrow,” Helena chuckled. “Never mind, it's my turn to bring you orange juice.”

“I shall look forward to it, _meleth nin_ ,” said Legolas, looking at her intently. Helena suddenly realised that she had effectively promised to come into his bedroom in the morning and felt a wave of embarrassment, and something else, desire maybe, wash over her. She gazed up at his deep blue eyes. She brushed the feelings away and tried to keep her voice light.

“You really are drunk. You're slurring your words, _mellon nin_ ,” she said. 

“No,” answered Legolas, still staring at her as though she was the only person in the room. “It's just that your Sindarin is next to non-existent, _meleth nin_ ,” he added, carefully emphasising the last two words.

“So are you going to tell me what the subtle difference is? Not that I think you're in any state to do subtle.”

“Maybe later,” said Legolas. He brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face and smiled at her.

Behind them, unnoticed by Helena, Jonathan choked on his drink and darted into the kitchen, where he stood, shoulders shaking, knuckles thrust into his mouth to stifle his laughter.

“What's so funny?” asked Matt.

“I think Lottie's evil plan is working,” Jonathan replied, in a muffled voice.

“Well, of course it is. I am an evil genius, doncha know,” said Lottie, following him through the door.

“What in particular makes you think that?” Matt continued his questioning.

“Well, assuming my Sindarin is better than Helena's, and given that I am not a philistine scientist, I think we can safely make that assumption...”

“Get to the point, my artsy-fartsy pedant.”

“Legolas just called Helena 'my love'.” Lottie caught Jonathan by the hands and launched into a triumphant jig. As she whirled him round, Jonathan noticed that Matt looked rather less surprised by this news than he'd hoped. In fact, it seemed almost as if his face bore a tinge of sadness.

Back in the sitting room, Legolas had no difficulty overhearing the conversation. _Oh, so now everyone knows except Helena_ , he realised with a guilty start. For her part, Helena sat snuggled against him, relishing the warm feel of his body next to hers, wishing she could stay like that for ever, wondering what it would feel like to have his arms around her again, what would happen if this time she made no attempt to run. She felt a blanket of sleepiness descend over her, in part due to the beer (though she had been careful not to drink as much as Lottie had intended her to). She gave a huge yawn.

“I think I need to get you home,” said Legolas.

“Hmmph, after the amount you've drunk what makes you so sure it won't be the other way round,” said Helena. Legolas got to his feet and stuck his head round the kitchen door.

“I'm taking Helena home before she falls asleep where she's sitting,” he said. “Happy birthday, Lottie.”

“Don't do anything I wouldn't,” said Jonathan, with a smirk, then added, “Actually, scratch that, I'm gay – feel free to get up to all sorts of things that I wouldn't even consider.” Legolas scowled at him.

“Goodnight, Jonathan. By the way, I still have really good hearing even when I'm drunk.”

“Yeah, yeah, it's the control over what you're saying that seems to be suffering,” said Jonathan with a laugh. Legolas responded with a rude hand gesture he'd picked up from Cathy.

He made his way back to the couch, followed by Lottie. He offered a hand to Helena and pulled her to her feet. Lottie brought them their coats.

“Thanks for a great party, Lottie,” said Helena, with a grin. “Hope you remember it tomorrow.”

~o~O~o~

Legolas waited till they were round the corner, out of sight of Lottie's house. Suddenly, he reached out and took Helena's hand, pulling her round to face him. She found herself staring up at him. Strands of his hair blew in the light wind, his high cheekbones looking, in the dim light, as though they had been carved from some rare and precious stone, his eyes fixed intently on hers. His free arm reached out and snaked round her waist, pulling her part way towards him, but not too close, while he continued to gaze with a questioning look in his eyes. He released her hand and moved his own up to her cheek, stroking her hair away from her face.

“Why did you run from me the other night?” he asked. He heard her take a deep breath, watched the familiar slight tilt of her chin as she steeled herself to answer.

“Panic. I'm scared,” she said simply. Legolas immediately loosened his grasp.

“Of me?” he said, pain and regret in his voice.

“No, not you. I could never be scared of you. Of my feelings. Of what they would do to me if I let go,” she replied. Hesitantly, she slid her hand up his arm till it came to rest on his shoulder. “You're immortal, you're beautiful, you're from a different world, and one day you're going to go back to that world, and where would that leave me?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “If I let myself go, if I let myself love you, I don't know how I'd find a way back. I feel like I'm clinging on to the last vestiges of sanity before it's too late.” Legolas's hand returned to its earlier resting place, caressing her cheek once more, fingertips so light a touch that they traced her skin like a passing breeze.

“It's already too late for me, Helena, _meleth nin_ … my love. I love you,” he said. 

Helena gave a gasp of surprise, eyes widening. As if of its own volition, her hand drifted up to touch his cheek, her gesture mirroring his. It was enough. His arm tightened round her waist, pulling her against him, other hand sliding back into her hair, long fingers tangling in the soft brown strands. His lips brushed hers. Their first touch was gentle, soft, barely a whisper. He drew back, gazing into her eyes. Her hands snaked around the back of his shoulders, lips parting slightly, and he leant in and kissed her again, this time harder. Helena found herself returning the kiss, tentatively at first, then with increasing boldness. As if answering, his lips and tongue teased and caressed, coaxed and demanded by turns, and she responded in kind, with an almost desperate intensity, running her tongue over his lips, darting within his mouth, tasting him. It seemed as though her whole body was   
aflame. She threaded her hand through his long, incredibly soft hair, and felt him pull her in closer still. Helena felt as if their bodies were melting into one, flowing against each other.

~o~O~o~

The first thing Legolas realised was that he had been asleep, properly asleep. The second thing was that his head felt like an orc had buried a battle axe in it. The third thing was that Helena was snuggled in his arms, her head resting on his chest, the softness of her cheek warm against his skin. Legolas's eyes flew open. His mind suddenly filled with vivid recollections of the previous night. Very vivid indeed. He felt a wave of desire, combined with an overwhelming sense of love for the woman next to him. Then he remembered how drunk they had been and was assailed by a nagging feeling of guilt. Bit by bit he went through his memories. He remembered the passionate kiss as they stumbled through the door of the flat. Then Helena's voice.

“Where are we going with this?” she had asked. 

“I want to take you to my bed,” he had replied, adding sadly, “But you are too drunk, I must not.”

“Not as drunk as you think,” she had replied. “Though Lottie's house-plants may not make it through the night,”she added with a giggle, then continued, “and in any case, the answer would still be yes if I was sober, I'd just be too shy to say it.” She paused and looked at him thoughtfully, then said, “Though I'd hate to feel I was taking advantage of you while you were drunk.” 

“You seem to be forgetting how much elves can drink. I have not drunk so much that I cannot judge what I desire. And I desire you with all my soul.”

She had smiled and taken his hands, drawing him across the room. “My bed is bigger,” she had said, kicking off her shoes.

Legolas smiled at the memory, and stroked Helena's hair. Suddenly he felt utterly content simply to lie there and watch her in the early morning half-light, the way her eyelashes fluttered slightly in sleep, the curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw, her neck, the gentle rise and fall of her chest.

He lost track of how long he lay with her cradled in his arms, taking in every detail. Eventually, there was a soft murmur, and her head moved against him, her arms stretching slightly. She opened her eyes and looked at him, with a mixture of shyness and wonder. He smiled at her, and she responded with a dazzling smile of her own. Helena felt herself drawn close in strong arms. Legolas leaned in and kissed her.

“In case you had forgotten,” he said, “I love you.” 

“And I love you,” she replied, adding in a teasing tone, “How are you feeling after the beer? I seem to remember promising to get you orange juice”

“That would,” he said, placing a whisper of a kiss on her forehead, “mean …,” another kiss on her cheek, “letting you...,” a line of kisses along the curve of her jaw, an answering sigh from her, “get out…,” more kisses down her throat to the hollow at the base of her neck, an intake of breath, “of bed...,” kisses back up the side of her neck, “which would be...,” a touch of a kiss under her ear, rewarded with a soft moan, “a great...” a kiss at the corner of her mouth, “waste.” And he covered her mouth with his own, feeling her thread her fingers through his hair and meet his kiss with equal fervour.

It was several more hours before they finally got out of bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non _LaCE_ compliant, clearly. LIke you were really worried about that if you've worked your way through this much of such a crazy AU madhouse!


	20. That a married elf in possession of an irritating spouse must be in want of...

“So how the heck does a girl set about getting a divorce in this culture?” Mary Sue's question cut through the silence which hung between the two elves.

“What's a divorce?” asked Haldir.

“You have got to be kidding me. You've never heard of divorce? When two people legally end their marriage?” Mary Sue said in tones of disbelief.

“Elves take these things very slowly and rarely make mistakes. I cannot speak for the customs of men, but I have not heard tell of such a process.”

“But what are you supposed to do if you find you've married a guy who can't keep his trousers fastened, or who turns out to be a total bastard?” said Mary Sue. “That's just barbaric, forcing you to stay married in those circumstances.”

“I take it you would like our marriage undone,” said Haldir.

“Well, don't you?” 

“Of course, but I had got the impression that you had been pursuing me.”

“OK, when I first met you you seemed kinda cute. But wanting a quick roll in the hay does not equate to wanting to spend the rest of your life with someone. And that was before I found out about the personality. Frankly, now I know you better, not even a quick roll in the hay seems particularly attractive,” said Mary Sue, crossly.

“You're hardly in a position to cast aspersions on someone else's personality. And I can't see what's so bad about mine.”

“Which more or less sums it up. You're self-absorbed, arrogant and totally selfish.”

“Selfish! After looking after you all this time in the wilderness, hunting food for us, helping you with riding, looking after you when you were scared half to death after the orc attack?”

“And never once letting me forget that you found me dead weight, that you'd rather be without me. And what about your reaction to those bloody horsemen? 'Oooh, this is the worst thing that could possibly have happened to lil' ole _me_.' What about, 'the worst thing that could have happened to us.' It's not like I want to be married to you either.”

“So you have made abundantly clear. Though I fail to see, given how unpleasant you find me, why you continued to flirt with me for so long.”

“Well, it seemed to wind you up, which was kinda amusing.”

“I believe in your world that such behaviour is called 'sexual harassment' and hardly casts your personality in a favourable light,” said Haldir in a voice dripping with sarcasm. Mary Sue went silent for a while, mulling this over. Eventually she spoke in a quiet voice.

“You're right about that. It was pretty crappy behaviour. I'm sorry.” There was another long pause.

“I'm sorry too. It may not come as a complete surprise to you to know that you are not the first person to accuse me of being arrogant and selfish,” said Haldir.

“No shit?” chuckled Mary Sue. “Actually, what you said earlier, that was true. You have looked after me, and I have been pretty horrendous to have to drag around the place.” Haldir smiled.

“Maybe it will be possible to arrange this … ending of our marriage in an amicable way,” he said.

“Yeah, that sounds good. Mediation rather than getting lawyered-up,” Mary Sue replied with a smile. “When we've got all this mess in the Harad sorted out, we'll get Gladdy to send us to Reno for a quickie divorce.”

~o~O~o~

Haldir had been right about one thing – by the time he and Mary Sue finally arrived at the Haradrim city, she had got used to riding and could spend a day in the saddle without aching all over. However, as they rapidly found out, that was just about the only good news. Discreet enquiries revealed that Gimli and his comrades were not staying in any of the hostelries around the town. In one, they had made the unwelcome discovery that the group had spent a single night there, before moving (or being moved) to Lord Akhtamesh's heavily fortified palace.

Haldir and Mary Sue sat in the shade of a large plane tree and discussed their options.

“We could always dress you up as a dancing girl and I could offer you up as a gift to gain access,” said Haldir, with a grin which let Mary Sue know this wasn't intended to be a serious suggestion. She answered in kind.

“Well, the word in the souk is that Akhtamesh swings both ways. How about you wear the skimpy silk outfit and I offer you up as a gift?”

“No need to make it sound so ridiculous. I'll have you know I do a mean plié,” Haldir said, dead-pan. There was a moment's pause, then both elves burst out laughing. In truth, since the conversation about divorce and the realisation that they could eventually escape from their unwanted matrimonial entanglement, they had been getting along quite well. They still fought like cat and dog, but it was mostly friendly bickering these days.

They got up from their resting place and set off down one of the myriad narrow alley ways which made up the poorer quarter of the town. The houses crowding in on either side offered some shade at least, but the heat was still oppressive and the smells which assaulted them took their breath away. They still had not come up with any plan, and, for want of anything better to do, had settled on further reconnaissance. With that in mind, they wove their way through the maze of streets until they reached a rather broader, grander boulevard which led towards Akhtamesh's palace. Their proximity to the enemy's base proved to be their undoing.

As they struggled through the press of people thronging the broad thoroughfare, they suddenly found themselves being swept towards the edge of the street by a sudden wave of movement in the crowd. It turned out that the natives of the city, being more accustomed to its ways, were surging out of the way of an oncoming troop of soldiers, led by a youngish officer (who, had he been there, Gimli would have been able to identify as Akhtamesh's second-in-command). The elves found themselves at the front of the crowd, Haldir trying to draw his hood over his head and Mary Sue attempting to cover herself in the loose scarf she had been using to hide her ears. It was no use. Their pale complexions stood out like beacons on a mountain top.

“Seize them,” said the lieutenant, gesturing to his men. The elves found themselves captured in the iron grasp of the soldiers. The young officer reached out and tugged Mary Sue's scarf away from her head, grabbing a handful of her hair and tugging it roughly back to reveal her face and ears. He backhanded Haldir, splitting his lip and drawing a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, before throwing his hood off.

“A pair of filthy golug spies!” Mary Sue didn't understand the significance of the word, but she felt Haldir tense beside her as he recognised the Black Speech of their captor and realised that this was a man who had willingly fought alongside Sauron's orcs in the war of the ring.

“Bind them. We will bring them before Akhtamesh.”

~o~O~o~

Mary Sue and Haldir found themselves in one of the rooms of Akhtamesh's palace, with a high vaulted ceiling and colonnade of pillars round the sides. The floor was elaborately tiled with polished, coloured geometrical tiles, and through archways they could hear the splashing of fountains in the courtyard beyond. It would have been an idyllic respite from the heat outside had they not been in fear for their lives. Mary Sue watched in horror as Akhtamesh drew a finger down Haldir's cheek, pausing for a moment to caress the cut on his lip. Haldir twisted his head away, which made Akhtamesh laugh.

“It is so much more entertaining when they are unwilling, I find,” he said to his lieutenant. “Though it seems a shame that you saw fit to bruise such a pretty face.” He turned to one of the slaves, and said in imperious tones, “Summon our guests.”

He left the elves standing in the centre of the room while he turned to a writing desk and idly leafed through the scrolls and parchments which were lying on its surface. Mary Sue tried to catch Haldir's eye. They exchanged glances, desperation written on both their faces. After a few minutes, the doors were opened once more. Haldir and Mary Sue heard a sharp intake of breath. There, trying to cover his horror beneath a mask of indifference, stood Gimli, with Anborn and Damrod just behind him.

“Ah, my honoured guests. I wondered if you would care to join me in an afternoon of sport,” said Akhtamesh, his lips drawn into a shark-like grin. “The male elf is mine, but I thought it would be entertaining to see what the three of you could do with the female. I find that sharing such pastimes cements friendships and underpins loyalties.” Gimli swallowed hard. Akhtamesh was an acute observer of human (and by extension, dwarvish) nature – he clearly intended that not only the elves, but he and his companions would be debased and left morally bankrupt by the activities the Haradrim had in mind.

“Come now, surely you're not squeamish, Thror, my friend! You told me you had no great love of elves.”

“No, no love. But no desire either – they're far too slender and hairless for my tastes,” said Gimli, desperately casting round for a way out of the situation.

“Ah, no matter, your companions surely will have no such reservations, and you can drink wine and observe the entertainment.” Akhtamesh seized Mary Sue and threw her roughly across the room towards Anborn. She fell at his feet. It suddenly occurred to her that Galadriel had mentioned that the two men were Rangers of Ithilien. She took a desperate punt on them being educated men of Gondor, and on Akhtamesh not knowing languages other than his own, Westron and Black Speech.

“ _Twist my arm up behind my back and make it look convincing_ ,” she said in Sindarin, making the tone of voice sound as though she was pleading for mercy.


	21. The curious allure of a truly bad movie

The two months since Helena and Legolas had first tumbled into bed with one another had passed for the most part in a happy blur. They had agreed to try to keep things quiet to start with while they got used to the idea of being together; this plan had lasted the best part of ten minutes on the Monday morning following Lottie's birthday.

Helena had blown it first; she had arrived, pink and breathless and several minutes late for her seminar. (This was largely due to Legolas's suggestion that it would somehow speed up the morning routine if they shared a shower, – needless to say, viewed from the perspective of efficiency, this had proved to be a singularly daft suggestion, though it is perhaps only fair to note that Legolas probably had another, ulterior, motive). Matt had given her a knowing look. At coffee after the seminar he had come up to her, smirked at her and enquired how the rest of her weekend had gone. She had murmured something non-committal. Matt had then informed her, helpfully, that she might as well have had a neon sign above her head reading 'Spent whole weekend shagging: it was great.'

Not surprisingly, Legolas had not fared any better when (incurring the boss's wrath) he arrived late at the café. Cathy had been merciless. Later, however, when they had found themselves alone for a few moments, she had been more interesting.

“Be careful with your lass. Be gentle. The men of your kind have a certain reputation.”

“What do you mean, _men of my kind?_ ” Legolas had never been more amazed in his life than by the moments which followed his question; Cathy had reached up and brushed the hair back from his ears.

“My family are from the west of Ireland originally. We still remember about the fay folk there. You'll not up and leave her heartbroken, will you?” Legolas had looked at her in astonishment. Then he had decided to answer her question, taking it at face value.

“Nothing could be further from my intentions. In fact, I think it's rather more likely that I will be the one left heartbroken one day.” He remembered deciding on the spur of the moment to explain everything to Cathy, who, to her credit, had listened in sympathetic silence, and had proved unusually discreet.

One brief intrusion into their happiness had been caused by Helena's unwanted dinner with Evans. She had gone to the event with no enthusiasm and considerable trepidation. However, she had steeled herself to think of the importance of the information she might be able to gain, and had tried to draw out of him what his project involved; he had, to her annoyance, refused to be drawn. Then, as he escorted her out, in one of the dark passages between quads, he tried to kiss her. She had pushed him away angrily. At that point, he had made it quite clear that he expected 'payment' for dinner. 

“You utter shit,”Helena had shouted at him. “You invited me assuring me it was just a friendly, collegial dinner. And even if it had been a date, only a total misogynist arsehole would assume that that gave him the right to expect more.” She had pushed past him, and marched to the porters' lodge, where she insisted on having a taxi called. When she got home and recounted events, Legolas had been torn between fury at Evans' behaviour and amusement at the dressing-down she had administered.

“Did you tell him about us?” he had asked.

“No, because it wasn't his business, and it wasn't the point anyway. I'm not off limits because I belong to you, I'm off limits because I _choose to be_. And he really is a total arsehole. Even if I'd never met you, even if he was the last bloody man on earth, I wouldn't touch him with someone else's!”

“I'm guessing you didn't get any useful information out of him, either,” Legolas had said, with a laugh.

“No. Bloody hell, I'm so angry. I should have kneed him in the balls.” Legolas had wrapped his arms around her.

“I believe this is a rather hackneyed expression, but you really are beautiful when you're angry. Especially when you're angry with someone else.” 

The other thing which had changed, or perhaps more accurately, developed, following Lottie's birthday was Matt's friendship with Legolas. Matt had been delighted by the two finally admitting to each other how they felt, though he remained worried about the implications that Legolas had explained. But, worries aside, he greatly enjoyed the irony involved in finding himself cast in the unlikely role of advisor on the progress of a heterosexual (and furthermore, interspecies) relationship. Perhaps the strangest conversation this had led to had been the one Legolas had had with Matt while out for a run. The elf had admitted to feeling a bit sad and slightly guilty about how things had started between Helena and himself; surely, he had said, she had deserved to be wooed properly, for him to have taken his time, for him to have taken the trouble to acquaint himself with the customs of her people and court her accordingly. Matt had burst out laughing.

“But you did woo her in accordance with the customs of our people. You both got totally rat-arsed on a Saturday night and ended up shagging each other senseless.” When they had got back to Matt's place, he had handed him a slightly dog-eared paperback, _Watching the English_ , and had explained that it would help the elf to make sense of a lot of things about the culture in which he found himself.

~o~O~o~

It was a glorious day in mid May. Legolas and Helena lay on a picnic blanket on the bank of the Thames as it wound its way through Port Meadow. The vivid blue of the sky was reflected in the water, and all the colours, from the green of the grass and trees to the brown of the river bank, seemed preternaturally sharp and vivid. An eight slid gracefully through the water, making a rhythmic splash-swoosh-clunk.

“I don't know what's got into me. I've been so tired the last few days. Not just ordinary tired, exhausted beyond anything I'd ever imagined,” said Helena. Legolas frowned and propped himself up on one elbow.

“You should go to see a doctor – and I don't mean promising to have a word with Lottie next time you see her, then forgetting all about it. I mean really going to see your doctor,” he said. He reached out and stroked her cheek. “Mortals are fragile. I don't want you to get ill. You work too much. I think maybe you've exhausted yourself.”

“I work far less since you started finding ways of distracting me.”

“I thought,” said Legolas, raising an eyebrow, “that you rather enjoyed it when I distracted you.”

“Mmm,” said Helena and reached her hand out, pulling his head close for a kiss. As she felt their lips brush together, gently at first, then felt his tongue touch her lips gently, and dart inside her mouth, Helena marvelled that their kisses could still affect her as strongly as the first kiss they'd shared. Legolas ran his hand down her back, resting it in the hollow curve of her waist, and she felt desire course through her at his touch. He broke off from kissing her, and Helena felt his breath on her ear as he started to whisper to her of all the places he would touch her, kiss her, taste her, if they were somewhere more private.

“Maybe we should go home,” she murmured in response.

“Later,” said Legolas with a wicked glint in his eye. “I'm going to keep you here and tell you all the things I want to do, in the knowledge that we have to behave ourselves while we're out here. It will make things all the better when I finally take you home.”

“How did my shy elf suddenly become so confident?” laughed Helena.

“I'm sorry I was so inexperienced when we started,” said Legolas. “You deserved so much better.” And he told her about the conversation he had had with Matt.

“Don't be silly,” said Helena, stroking his hair. “It was lovely. Yes, we were both very shy – if it hadn't been for the beer, I doubt we'd have found the courage to do anything – and yes, neither of us had a clue what we were doing. But that's what made it so sweet. And we seemed to work it out just fine as we went along. And think how much fun we've had learning how to do it better.”

“And am I better? Do I please you?” said Legolas, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“Are you fishing for compliments? I think after this morning, you know the answer to that.”

“I think after this morning, the whole street knows the answer to that,” said Legolas, rolling onto his back with a smug grin. Helena reached out and tickled him under the ribs. The unexpected discovery that the elf was extremely ticklish had proved a source of endless delight to Helena. He squirmed, and captured her wrists.

“I'm never going to be able to look the neighbours in the face again,” giggled Helena, turning pink.

“Which reminds me. I was in the middle of telling you about all the things we were going to do when I got you home this evening.” Legolas pinned her wrists above her head and rolled on top of her, his voice dropping to a whisper again.

“Which reminds me,” said Helena, with the grin she usually reserved for announcing check-mate, “having got both of us all wound up, you may have to wait longer than you thought – Lottie's coming round tonight.” Legolas released her wrists and sat up abruptly, and to Helena's surprise, started packing the picnic things away.

“What are you doing? We don't have to go yet.”

“Yes we do, we'll only get a couple of hours at home before Lottie arrives.”

~o~O~o~

Helena sat in the corner of the couch with her arms wrapped round Legolas, who was stretched out along it, lying against her. Lottie snuggled in the armchair, remote in hand, channel surfing.

“Oh yes, we have _got_ to watch this,” she said.

“What is it?” asked Helena, then gave a sudden squeak as Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis appeared on screen. “No, we can't watch this...”

“Why not? It'll be informative, educational, a good starting point for discussion...” Helena reached over and made a grab for the remote, but Lottie was too quick for her. Helena resorted to covering her face with a cushion and moaning theatrically.

Ten minutes later, Legolas grinned at Lottie.

“Even your choice of films is evil. But I think I've got the joke now, you can switch the TV off. Oh, and just for the record, I'm not now and have never been bright blue.”

“No way am I switching this off,” said Lottie. “ _Earth Girls are Easy_ is a classic. Definitely in the category 'so bad it's good'.”

Despite himself, Legolas got quite engrossed in the film. He began to wonder if there was something in the 'so bad it's good' theory. He was, however, puzzled when Geena Davis's character sat up in bed the morning after the night before and started eating small tablets as if her life depended on it.

“I don't get the joke,” he said to Lottie.

“They're her birth control pills – the joke is that he's so virile that instead of having to take just one, she's necking the whole packet...,” Lottie's voice trailed off, a worried look appearing on her face.

“You mean humans don't control when they're fertile? They have to take medicines to do that?” asked Legolas, curiosity aroused.

“Elves can?”

“Yes, well so I believe, I mean, obviously I'm not female so I'm not quite sure how it works, and I've never been, uh, romatically involved with anyone before Helena, so I never had occasion to ask, but I think female elves can choose when to conceive.” Lottie looked in horror from Legolas to Helena.

“Tell me you've been taking the pill,” she said.

“Well, of course not. We're different species, remember? I mean, that's more-or-less the definition of different species, that they can't interbreed....”

“Oh, Yavanna!” said Legolas, suddenly understanding Lottie's look of horror. “You still haven't read the book, have you? You don't know about Beren and Luthien, or my friend Aragorn's marriage to Arwen?” Helena looked in confusion from Legolas to Lottie and back.

“So let me get this straight,” said Lottie. “You didn't bother with contraception because you thought Helena could control when she conceived,” giving a sharp look at Legolas, “and you,” giving an equally sharp look at Helena, “didn't bother with contraception because you thought you wouldn't conceive because Legolas is an elf.” She gave a deep sigh. “We doctors have a technical, medical term for people like you.” Helena and Legolas waited in a state of excruciating embarrassment for the inevitable punchline. “We call you 'parents'.” She let the implications sink in for several moments, then switched into 'doctor' mode.

“When was your last period, Helena?”

“Oh, my …. I can't remember exactly, but before Legolas and I …. Oh shit!”

~o~O~o~

It had taken Helena a long time to go to sleep the night before. Legolas had lain with her in his arms, stroking her hair gently and singing softly to her. When she woke the next morning, he leaned towards her to give her a good morning kiss. But before he got anywhere close, she wriggled out of his arms and disappeared at high speed. Legolas followed her, worried that she was still upset by the previous night's conversation. He found her in the bathroom, on her knees, passionately embracing the toilet bowl. And vomiting.

“Bloody Lottie. I was fine. This is psychosomatic. It's the power of suggestion.” Helena was still more than capable of engaging her powers of denial when pressed into a corner.

Legolas brought her a glass of water, tucked her back into bed, and went to the chemist's shop round the corner, where in addition to buying the necessary supplies, he had a very nice chat with the motherly woman behind the counter about the best tactics for combating morning sickness. He let himself back into the flat, and appeared in their bedroom with a small cardboard packet and a plate of dry toast together with some ginger biscuits.

~o~O~o~

In addition to all the other forms of traffic analysis Galadriel and Mary Sue had been carrying out in their efforts to try to work out from internet chatter what was going on in the other world, Galadriel had come up with a rather nifty algorithm which tracked both Helena and Legolas's bank cards and flagged up any unusual purchases.

Galadriel looked at the alert which had popped up on the screen of her laptop and gave a little scream.

“What has happened now?” Celeborn demanded.

“Legolas... Legolas has bought... he's bought a pregnancy testing kit.” There was a stunned silence. Eventually, Celeborn spoke.

“Madam, I am more disappointed in you than I can possibly express. You promised me faithfully that you would not subject him to an Mpreg.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Watching the English_ is a real book, by a real anthropologist (Kate Fox) which really does advance the hypothesis (tongue-in-cheek) that without alcohol as a social lubricant, the English population would crash catastrophically.


	22. A rather important piece gets captured

“Cease your whining, woman,” said Anborn, harshly. He had realised immediately what the strange elf was planning. He pulled her arm up, quickly enough to look rough, but in reality being careful not to hurt her. She gave a simulated gasp of pain.

“ _Get ready to let go on three_ ,” she replied, making the phrase sound like a curse.

“Elvish bitch,” hissed Anborn, making it look as though he was hauling her to her feet, but being careful to make sure she kept her balance.

“What the...” began Gimli, shocked at Anborn's words (despite many years spent in Legolas' company, he understood next to no Sindarin). Mary Sue's voice cut across Gimli's horrified outburst, counting, making each number sound like the worst expletive ever to be uttered. Anborn let her go. She flew across the room, foot making sharp contact with Akhtamesh's groin. He crumpled to the floor. Haldir, who was every bit as quick on the uptake as Anborn, was ready, and had Akhtamesh's own dagger drawn from its sheath and held to the Haradrim's throat before he hit the ground, and before his lieutenant had a chance to react. Haldir looked up at Mary Sue from where he crouched by Akhtamesh's prone form, and spoke in English.

“ _Nicely done, wife_.” To Mary Sue's astonishment, Haldir actually winked at her..

“ _Well, if I'm not allowed to have sex with my husband, I'll be damned if I'm letting anyone else!_ ” Mary Sue replied, in the same language. She gave him a huge grin, then turned to where Anborn had seized and disarmed Akhtamesh's second-in-command. Switching to Westron, she said, “Okay, now we've comprehensively blown your cover, what next?”

“First off, what do we do with these two,” said Anborn.

“Well, we have to go and collect Fror – he was working on the latest version of the weapon,” said Gimli. “And now we're committed to this course, I think it would be wise to find the visitor from another world.”

“Yes, that's more or less why we're here. Galadriel and I discovered his existence,” said Mary Sue.

“Using her mirror?” asked Gimli. 

“Not exactly. Google. Hacking people's e-mails. Oh hell, just think of it as another version of her mirror,” said Mary Sue, seeing Gimli's baffled expression. 

While this conversation was going on, Anborn had securely tied up the two Haradrim. He and Haldir pulled them to their feet.

“Any attempt to summon help and I will slit your throat, which is a better end than you deserve for what you intended to do to my companion and me,” said Haldir. With Anborn holding the lieutenant by the shoulder, and Haldir gripping Akhtamesh (while making it look as though he was casually holding his arm) the group made their way out to the courtyard. They swiftly made their way across this and down the narrow passage past the slaves' quarters to the building Gimli and Fror had been using as a workshop. 

“Time to go, Fror,” said Gimli. “Haldir's made a mess of our attempts to blend in. Typical bloody elf.”

“Elves plural, please,” said Mary Sue. “I was the one who kicked Akhtamesh in the balls.”

“ _Should've cut 'em off,_ ” muttered Haldir in English. He was not feeling in the slightest bit forgiving towards Aktamesh's plans for him.

“You,” said Damrod to the lieutenant. “Where's the prison block.” The young soldier allowed himself to be led out the door and back down the passage, giving directions to take a small doorway, and follow a flight of stairs that led downwards, into tunnelled rooms beneath the palace. Eventually, after many twists and turns, the soldier indicated for them to halt. 

“There will be guards,” he murmured. Anborn gestured to Damrod, and the two of them readied themselves. Mary Sue put a finger to her lips, and waved to them to stay where they were. Haldir's eyes widened in surprise as she undid the top of the laces on her bodice. She held up three fingers to Anborn, who nodded. Mary Sue opened the door and sashayed through it. There was a yell of warning from the room within, then the elf's voice.

“Hello boys, no need to be unfriendly.” The words were low and husky, and Haldir felt a strange stab of something, he wasn't quite sure what, apparently tying his guts in knots. Anborn signalled with his fingers, three, two, one, then the two Gondorians unsheathed their swords and charged through the door, leaving Gimli and Haldir looking after the prisoners. 

 

The guards put up a fiercer fight than their officer had, which didn't surprise Anborn; he already had the young man pegged as an utter coward. Damrod forced one into a corner and disarmed him. The second launched a frenzied attack on Anborn, who eventually slashed him across the stomach, causing him to drop his sword. Mary Sue retrieved the keys from the guard Damrod had restrained, and unlocked the door to the cell. As she entered, a filthy, half-starved looking man shrank back against the wall. His hair was knotted into dirty rats' tails, he had several weeks growth of beard. But above all he looked terrified.

“ _It's okay,_ ” said Mary Sue, “ _The cavalry just arrived._ ” The man looked stunned.

“ _You speak English,_ ” he gasped.

“ _Long story, but the short version is we're getting you out of here._ ” She helped him to his feet and led him out of the door.

“Time to get rid of our rather inhospitable hosts,” said Anborn. Gimli and Haldir brought Akhtamesh and the lieutenant into the guardroom. To Mary Sue's surprise, Anborn clouted both men on the back of the neck with the hilt of his sword; they went down as if poleaxed. 

“No point taking any chances,” he said, and he and Damrod trussed and gagged them, before bundling them into the cell, along with the uninjured guard.

“What are we going to do with him,” asked Haldir, gesturing to the guard with the stomach wound.

“He'll bleed out if we leave him in the cell,” said Mary Sue.

“But if we don't, we'll have the whole of Akhtamesh's army on our heels,” said Gimli. “And that sort of wound is beyond the help of even the most skilled of leaches. He will go to meet his fathers whether we leave him here or slow our progress by taking him with us.”

“He'd be okay if we could get him to an ER, I mean 'house of healing' in the other world,” said Mary Sue.

“Take him to the sorceress' room and try to send to the other world?” suggested Anborn.

“Lead the way,” said Mary Sue. “I could do with taking a look at how Akhtamesh has been sending people between worlds.” Anborn led the way, back up the narrow tunnels, explaining as he went about the sorceress and her spells. Gimli, stronger than the men, carried the injured guard. Mary Sue followed on, between Damrod and Haldir, who brought up the rear with Fror, carrying his axe ready to use. 

At one point they had to cross a small courtyard, almost like a cloister, onto which a brightly lit room opened. They could hear the raucous voices of soldiers from within the room. They slipped as silently as they could round the opposite side of the cloister. Halfway to the open doorway that promised safety, they heard the door of the room open and two soldiers come out. As fast as they could, they pressed themselves, singly or in pairs, into the niches which lined the walls. Haldir and Mary Sue found themselves pressed behind a statue. Mary Sue realised, surprised that this was the first time she'd noticed, that Haldir was slightly taller than she was; she was used to being as tall, if not taller than most of the men she met. She also realised that her dress was still loose round the neck, and that she was revealing quite an expanse of bare skin. And that Haldir, it seemed, had noticed.

“ _Enjoying the view?_ ” she whispered, using English, as was rapidly becoming a habit when either wanted to say something to the other that wouldn't be understood by anyone else.

“ _Not exactly the time for it._ ”

“ _Well, if you ever decide there is a good time..._ ”

“ _Right now might be a good time to keep quiet._ ”

They heard the two men, apparently pissing in the fountain. Then the soldiers went back inside.

“ _Bloody barbarians_ ,” muttered Haldir. The group moved out the niches and through the doorway.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity in the dark passages, they found themselves facing a small wooden door. Anborn pushed it open to reveal the colonnaded room in which he'd watched the sorceress conjure demons and send orcs to the other world.

“The only trouble is, I think it requires those powders on the table and lots of incantations to do perform the magic,” said Anborn.

“Well let's at least get him into place,” said Gimli, taking the unconscious man from Haldir. Gimli carried him across the tiled floor and stepped into the circle. There was a blinding flash of the blue light Helena had seen the night Legolas appeared in her world, and both Gimli and the Haradrim soldier disappeared. As they did so, there was a keening screech, and a deep female voice called out.

“Who dares to disturb the spells of the Witch Queen?”

“Run for the stables,” yelled Anborn.

“What about Gimli?” cried Mary Sue.

“There's nothing to be done about that now. He's in the other world. We have to get back to our own realms. Then maybe we can worry about that.”


	23. What to expect when you haven't a clue what you're expecting

**The first and second months.**

_So, the attentive reader will realise we should probably skip these chapters because due to their misunderstanding of the reproductive biologies of each other's species, Helena and Legolas didn't realise Helena was pregnant till nearly the three month mark. But these chapters usually deal with the activity one well-known parenting website describes by the acronym POAS (piss on a stick), so we will pause for a moment to describe what happened when Legolas got back from the chemists with the test kit and ginger biscuits._

The line was a very bright, unmistakeable blue. Helena sat down on the sofa, or perhaps more precisely, her legs folded under her and she landed there with a thump. One of the advantages of not sleeping was that Legolas had been able to spend the whole night thinking through how to phrase things when the inevitable unfolded (he had been in no doubt as to the outcome as soon as Helena had admitted to being several months overdue).

“Helena, nothing would give me more joy than to be the father of your child. But you are the one who is pregnant.” He paused, almost able to hear Lottie's calmly clinical voice the night before, outlining the options available. “I love you and will do my best to support any decision you make.” He stopped, and looked at her anxiously, wondering if he could somehow will her to make the decision he wanted. Helena sat with her face in her hands. He could hear a muffled sobbing noise. Eventually, she looked up at him, eyes red and cheeks wet with tears. She managed a wavering smile.

“Sorry, it's the shock,” she said. She took a deep breath. “It's all going to be okay, in a totally not okay and messed up kind of way. I mean, I don't really want to be pregnant right now, we don't know what's going to happen to you in the long term, I'm absolutely bloody terrified. But I do want this baby. I really do.” 

Legolas felt as though he would burst with relief and sheer happiness. He sat down next to her and wrapped his arms around her. She threaded her own arms round his waist, and buried her face in his chest, still sniffing quietly.

“I love you, more than I can put into words,” Legolas repeated his earlier words. “I'm so happy you want this child... our child. I will do everything in my power to look after you and our baby.”

 

**The third month.**

_You will probably find yourself suffering from morning sickness. [There is a pencilled annotation in the margin at this point, in Helena's hand: 'Ginger biscuits don't bloody work.'] Hormones may cause mood swings. [Another item of marginalia, in the same hand: 'It's not bloody hormones, it's the bloody elf, waving bloody ginger biscuits under my nose when I feel sick.'] Your foetus is has now reached a length of ... actually we haven't a clue, given that we don't even know how long your pregnancy is going to last (9 months? A year? Somewhere in between?) and Legolas is proving singularly unhelpful as he doesn't know how big elven babies are when they're born because he's never really paid attention to this sort of stuff. So you're kind of on your own here._

Helena and Legolas sat in the waiting room in the women's health centre. Helena had explained the procedure to him, but Legolas found that although he understood it on an intellectual level, he still could not really comprehend the idea of being able to see their baby inside Helena's womb. He took hold of her hand, and gripped it tightly. The whole prospect felt quite overwhelming. His reverie was cut short by Helena's down-to-earth announcement.

“God, I'm busting for a pee.” She squirmed in her seat.

“Helena Brodie?” asked a voice. They turned to see a woman with short blonde hair, wearing dark red hospital scrubs. “This way.”

Legolas followed Helena into a dimly lit room. There was a high, narrow bed, covered in a wide strip of paper tissue, a trolley with various bits of equipment on, and a computer monitor. 

“Hello,” said the sonographer, with a smile at both of them. She continued in a friendly but detached voice, “Right, so you're here for the 12 week scan. Would you like to sit here,” she said, gesturing to Legolas, then turning to Helena, “If you could just hop up on the bed and ease your trousers down for me.” She tucked a length of the same coarse paper tissue into the top of Helena's knickers, and squirted clear gel on her stomach. 

“Oooh, that's cold. Specially on a full bladder.”

“The fuller the better. We'll get a nice clear image that way,” said the sonographer with a smile. “Now, when was your last period?” 

“I'm not quite sure, about two and a half, maybe three months ago,” said Helena.

“Let's take a look and see, shall we?” She picked up an object about the size of the shaver Legolas had seen Matt using, only with a rounded end and coiled wire leading to the computer, and started to run it up and down Helena's belly with methodical sweeps. Legolas and Helena watched transfixed as the shadowy image of a baby appeared on the screen, albeit one with a huge head and tiny arms and legs.

“That's good, that's a nice clear heart beat.... oh, in fact, that's two nice clear heartbeats. You're having twins.” She moved the scanner slightly to reveal a second baby, snuggled behind the first. Helena and Legolas stared at one another, wide eyed, faces frozen with shock.

_The 12 week ultrasound usually marks the point at which couples feel comfortable enough to share their news with a wider circle of family and friends._

“Well, that went well,” said Legolas drily, as he sat towelling Helena's wet hair in front of the fire in the bed and breakfast. Helena gave a snort of laughter, then something closer to a sob, then burst into tears. Legolas pulled her close against him.

Helena had taken him to meet her parents, who had retired to a cottage in the Suffolk countryside. To her embarrassment and then fury, her father had decided to react like something from a parody of a Victorian novella. She'd had rows in the past about him voting UKIP, but when she showed up with a “Polish” boyfriend who worked in a café, and had broke the news that she was pregnant, her father had responded by throwing them out of the house. They had had to walk two miles in the rain until they found a bed and breakfast. Helena was soaked to the skin, frozen and utterly miserable. Legolas was coldly furious, but trying not to let it show, because he didn't think that would help Helena in the slightest.

“To think I was worried how my father would react,” said Legolas.

“You've never really told me much about your family. What is your father like? What does he do?”

“You know, you really, really should read the books,” said Legolas with a laugh. “There are three elven realms in Middle Earth, Imladris, Lothlorien and Eryn Lasgalen. My father is the king of Eryn Lasgalen.”

“What? You're a prince?....” said Helena. Then suddenly she started to giggle.

“I suppose it is pretty funny,” said Legolas.

“No, it's not that, it's just... Well, for one thing, I was never the sort of little girl who spent her days dreaming about meeting Prince Charming – I always thought Cinderella was a bit wet. I preferred playing football in the mud and climbing trees.” Helena paused, then burst into another peal of laughter. “And my dad just threw you out in a fit of snobbishness because you work in a café.” Legolas started to laugh too.

“Don't forget the racism. What do you think he'll do if he ever finds out I'm not even human?”

“Well, so long as Eryn Lasgallen doesn't join the EU, he might actually warm to you slightly.”

**The fourth month**

_Hopefully you are now over the worst of the morning sickness. If you're going to stand any chance of glowing (and most of us don't), now is the time to do it. And (something the books rarely mention, except for one by a disarmingly honest female neurologist writing about foetal and infant brain development) pregnancy hormones have one side effect which is distinctly pleasant._

Helena lay on her side, gazing at Legolas. To her intense amusement, he was asleep. She could hear the gentle sound of his breath, and reached out a hand to thread his silvery gold hair round her fingers. She knew she had an idiotically fond expression on her face, but she couldn't help it. Legolas opened his eyes and looked sleepily at Helena. She moved her hand to stroke his cheek gently.

“I thought elves didn't sleep unless they were ill – or horrendously hung over!”

“You wore me out,” he said with a broad grin. “I came through the door from work expecting you to be all sleepy and wanting an evening collapsed on the couch watching TV, instead of which you made very crude and suggestive remarks in Anglo Saxon and dragged me into the bedroom.”

“I did not drag you into the bedroom,” Helena said, trying to pout indignantly, but failing as the corners of her mouth twitched upwards. “We did it on the sitting room floor.”

“If elves weren't so resilient, and didn't heal so fast, I would still bear the carpet burns,” said Legolas, with an entirely straight face. “Then you dragged me into the bedroom.”

“Did not, you carried me there.”

“Carried, dragged, either way you had your wicked way with me. Again.”

“Mmm, you didn't complain at the time,” said Helena.”In fact, you gave a very good impression of enjoying it very much.” She gave him a kiss, then rolled on top of him. “And I get the distinct impression you're going to complain now, either.”

 

**The fifth to seventh months**

_Round about the twenty week mark, you will probably start to feel the baby kick for the first time. It may be some weeks before your partner can feel the kicks._

Legolas had fallen into the habit of lying with his arms around Helena while she fell asleep. After she drifted off, needing much less rest, he would often get up and wander round the flat, reading books, listening to music quietly, before returning to bed to lie in the state between waking and dreaming in which elves rest. He was always next to her when he woke up. But recently he had taken to spending more and more of the night in bed with her, savouring the feeling of closeness.

Tonight, he wrapped around her, his cheek against the silky skin of her shoulder, breathing in the scent of her hair and body, arm cast round where waist used to be, hand laid flat across her swelling belly. It always surprised him how firm to the touch the round curve was. Under his palm, he could feel the babies stirring; he knew that with his elven hearing, if he put his ear to the skin there, he would hear their rapid heartbeats and the gentle swoosh of fluid as they floated in watery, warm, darkness, safe inside her. Their movements were gentle for the time being. Legolas knew if they were to kick harder they would wake her. He hoped they would stay calm for a while yet; she needed the sleep.

His thoughts drifted towards the extraordinary turn his life had taken in less than a year. Not only was he in another world, he had found the woman he loved after nearly two thousand years, and he was going to become a father. He smiled gently at the thought. With millennia at their disposal, elven courtships typically progressed slowly. In a matter of mere months, he doubted he would have progressed as far as holding hands back in Arda, had he followed the customs of his own people. And to have lain with a woman without marrying her. Suddenly, he found himself frowning. Despite Matt's assurances, he still felt he had not behaved properly.

Abruptly, his reverie was broken as Helena woke, leapt out of bed and hurtled to the other side of the bedroom with a speed which would have surprised him at the best of times and seemed all the more remarkable given her current size. She gave a groan, and doubled over as best she could, trying to pull at the toes on her left foot.

“Cramp,” she hissed through clenched teeth. Legolas helped her back onto the bed, and flexed her foot with one hand while he massaged her calf muscles with the other. He laughed quietly.

“Is this helping?” he asked.

“Mmm, yes, don't stop,” she replied.

“I've been thinking,” said Legolas. “There are maybe things we should try to do before the babies are born. I was wondering, about one of them. Do you think... would you... Would you consider marrying me?”

Helena couldn't help herself. She started to laugh. Then seeing Legolas's face, she tried to compose herself.

“Yes,” she said with a dazzling smile. Then started to chuckle. “Honestly though, what a time and situation to propose in.” Then her face became serious. “But I won't do it using stolen papers – we'll have to find some way of doing it properly. But even without marriage... Well, we belong to each other anyway. I love you.”

 

**The eighth month**

_This is the point in your pregnancy when you may well start thinking about attending ante-natal classes. These will help you prepare for birth, but perhaps equally importantly, many women find them a great way to make friends with other mothers-to-be._

“What's everyone having?” Tom asked the group sitting round the table in the Bird and Brat.

“We'll have a pint of Brakspear and a lemonade,” said a voice from behind him. Tom turned to see Legolas and Helena, holding hands.

“What are you doing here? I thought tonight was your ante-natal yoga class.”

“Umm, we've been thrown out,” said Helena, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other, like a naughty school child. Her announcement was met with cries of disbelief.

“How the hell do you get yourself thrown out of an ante-natal yoga class?” demanded Lottie.

“Well, you know how it was a bit 'weave your own lentils'?” Helena said, flopping onto one of the chairs, resting her hands on her belly and rubbing it absent mindedly. “The yoga was sort of OK, though to be honest, I've never been much of a one for all that bending and stuff at the best of times, and now I'm the size of an elephant... But all the woo stuff, well it was already getting pretty hard to keep a straight face. I mean, at one point she tried to tell us that more women went into labour at the full moon because of tidal forces on the amniotic fluid. For God's sake, Lake Michigan only manages tides of a couple of inches, and huge as I am, even I'm not carrying around that much fluid.”

Matt cracked up at this. Trust Helena's inner sceptical physicist to be hard at work, especially when confronted with the forces of New Age woo! If he knew her, he was pretty sure she'd have come up with an order-of-magnitude estimate of the exact gravitational forces at work in her head. Probably in less time than it took the class teacher to get onto the next yoga position. And quite possibly even with a relativistic correction thrown in for the hell of it. Legolas took up the story.

“We were managing to restrain ourselves, and refraining from laughing aloud as best we could. But then she made all the couples in the room sit facing each other in the lotus position, and asked us to look into each others' eyes and meditate on the cosmic forces that brought our babies into being. We couldn't help it – I whispered Marsden's and Helena whispered Laphroaig, and we both lost it. She was really quite polite about asking us to leave, but apparently we were ruining the 'vibes' for everyone else and in danger of introducing 'bad karma' into the situation.”

“Oh well,” said Lottie, “I suppose you've still got the NHS ones.”

“Mmm, yes, we had a terribly keen student midwife trying to get us to practise breastfeeding teddy-bears,” said Helena.

“You have got to be taking the piss,” said Matt.

“Alas, she is not,” Legolas assured him. “A whole room full of women heavy with child, pressing furry cuddly toys to their breasts. It brought home to me how many aspects of your culture I simply do not understand.”

“Let me get you that pint,” said Tom. “You sound like you really need it.”

“Actually, make mine a pint too,” said Helena.

~o~O~o~

With about four weeks to go to the human due date, Legolas was on his way home from work, striding through the dusk of late autumn. He was crossing the bridge over the Cherwell, the trees of the deer park to his right, heading towards the stone walls and imposing tower of Magdalen College. In the glow of the setting sun and faint light of the street lamps, he saw two tall figures striding toward him. There was something very familiar about their gait. And their clothes. Legolas stopped. The clothes – tunics, leggings, boots, cloaks – they were elven clothes from his own world. His heart seemed to skip a beat as two very familiar faces came into view.

“ _Mae govannen,_ ” said Elladan, pressing his hand to his chest in salutation. “Legolas, _mellon nin_ , it is good to see you.”

“How slim you look,” added Elrohir. “You're not showing at all yet.”


	24. Much Elven plotting

“ _What do you mean, 'not showing yet'?_ ” said Legolas, then realised this was probably the least pressing question he could have asked.

“ _The Lady Galadriel discovered that you had acquired a pregnancy test. She deeply regrets your situation, and extends her most heartfelt apologies,_ ” said Elrohir.

“ _If it is of any consolation, Lord Celeborn is furious with her,_ ” added Elladan.

“ _My 'situation'?_ ” asked Legolas, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

“ _That you are... with child,_ ” said Elrohir.

“ _With child? What madness is this? Have you all taken leave of your senses? I'm male, I cannot get pregnant. What on earth possessed you to think..._ ”

“ _Then why did you … The pregnancy test...?_ ” Elrohir's voice cut through Legolas' tirade.

“ _It was for my..._ ,” Legolas realised, rather too late, that there was no Sindarin word for 'girlfriend', eventually settling on saying “my betrothed.”

“ _Your betrothed!_ ” exclaimed Elladan.

“ _By Oromë, you have been busy_ ,” said Elrohir, dryly. “ _And, how can I put this delicately, perhaps a trifle precipitate. She is only your betrothed, after all, not your wife_.”

“ _Spare me the moral lecture, Elrohir. Your reputation among the elleths of Imladris is not exactly blameless. I, on the other hand, would have already married Helena had it not been for some legal peculiarities in this world._ ” Yet again, the twins gasped, and, yet again, leapt to entirely the wrong conclusion.

“ _She is already married?_ ” asked Elladan in shock.

“ _No, you complete.._.” Legolas dearly wished that Sindarin had as many synonyms for 'complete idiot' as English. Twit, moron, plonker, muppet, so many words in English, and yet there just didn't seem to be an appropriate translation. He settled for the best word he could come up with, feeling it didn't carry nearly enough vitriol: “ _... fool. It's me – I'm a non-person as far as this world is concerned. I can't legally marry her._ ”

Elladan turned his attention to the other thing which had been bothering him.

“ _I was under the impression that there were no elves in this world. Was Galadriel wrong about this?_ ”

“ _No,_ ” said Legolas, with a deep intake of breath. “ _Helena is mortal_.”

“ _Oh Elbereth. Your father will be furious_.”

“Well, he's got tough competition. Helena's father is already furious. He threw me out of her parents' house,” Legolas said. Elrohir and Elladan exchanged surprised looks, then laughed. The Mirkwood elf joined in with a rueful smile, then continued, “ _Actually, my Ada comes across as a paragon of restraint and reasonableness compared to hers. And..._ ” (here Legolas paused to remember Thranduil's interactions with Thorin Oakenshield and Bilbo Baggins, nearly a century earlier) “ _After a huge explosion of rage and a bit of a sulk, he usually comes round to some sort of sensible position._

_“But enough about my situation. How has Galadriel been able to pay such close attention to what has been happening in this world. Does the reach of her mirror extend this far?”_

_“No, she has this crystal-fronted tablet, I think she calls it an_ 'i-pad', _with which she can track the doings of this world._ ”

Legolas was speechless for what seemed like an age, but was probably only a minute or so. It was as if the word 'i-pad' was enough to unlock the closed part of his subconscious which had been nagging away for months with vague hints of familiarity. His brain was assaulted with a wave of memories, the strange memories involving Galadriel and modern technology which had been swirling, just out of his grasp, in the recesses of his mind for months.

“ _She sent me here! I'm going to..._ ” he burst out, sounding furious.

“ _Whatever you're thinking of doing, you'll have to join the back of the queue behind Lord Celeborn and the Marchwarden,_ ” Elladan said. Elrohir laughed.

“ _Yes, the Lady of Lothlorien has created her own mary sue, called, imaginatively enough, Mary Sue, and unleashed her on Haldir,_ ” Elrohir said with a laugh.

“ _And sent you here. Why?_ ” asked Legolas.

“ _Well, the Lady has not been acting purely for her own amusement. She and Mithrandir were worried by the mary sues, realising that the walls between worlds were becoming thin. And then we discovered that the movements appeared to be taking place in both directions. There are people in this world trying to capture orcs, for reasons we don't understand, and forces of dark magic in ours trying to manipulate this process for their own ends. And some of the weapons of this world have made it into our world, to one of the war-lords of the Haradwaith._ ”

Legolas stopped short at this news. He found himself thinking back to the conversation he had had with Helena about ten months earlier, when she had shown him the history book. Suddenly the image of charred trees and shattered buildings in the ruins of Hiroshima filled his mind's eye.

“ _What sort of weapons?_ ” he said, in a voice which shook. Elladan and Elrohir exchanged glances, unused to Legolas showing so much emotion.

“ _According to the captive Haldir and Mary Sue brought back from the Haradwaith, a thing called a_ pistol. _It fires small metal pellets called_ bullets,” Elladan explained.

“ _Is that the extent of it, so far?_ ” asked Legolas.

“ _As far as we know. What do you mean, 'the extent of it?' A whole army equipped with these would be able to wreak havoc.”_

_“Believe me, these are to the rest of their weapons as a small boy with a catapult is to Morgoth himself at the height of his powers. Come, let us return to my house. We can talk on the way._ ”

~o~O~o~

Helena sat in her office, looking once more at the crazy brickwork on the wall of the building opposite. It really did look like the architectural equivalent of a fairisle jumper. The babies felt as though they were doing acrobatics, and she was having a very hard time concentrating. She glanced down at her stomach and watched in fascination as her belly undulated visibly, even beneath her thick woolly jumper. She laid a hand over the top and spoke to the bump.

“Calm down in there, you two. Otherwise I'll have to read you a bed time story. Chapter 6 of the _Large Scale Structure of Spacetime_ should send you to sleep pretty quick. Or how about this nice research paper, 'Discretized multi-dimensional membranes with complex topologies'? No? Not enough fluffy animals? How about 'Applications of abstract algebra in relativistic quantum field theory'? What do you mean, you don't like the illustrations, tadpole one? And you'd rather it was in rhyming couplets, tadpole two? You two are just so fussy.” 

“I think I should call social services,” said a sardonic voice from the doorway. “Ante-natal exposure to theoretical physics has got to be grounds to be put on the at-risk register.” Helena turned her head to see Matt leaning against the door frame. 

“Rubbish. It's all about the tone of voice at this age. So long as I do it in a nice, cooing, sing-song voice they'll be quite happy.”

“Bloody hell, it's scary to think I'm relying on Legolas to be the normal parent out of the two of you! And can't you come up with a better name for them than 'the tadpoles'?” 

“Have you any idea how hard it is to compromise on names, even at the best of times, never mind when you're different species?”

“So, what is the Sindarin for 'tadpole'?”

His boss stuck her tongue out at him. Matt drifted off down the corridor in search of coffee and Helena made another attempt to engage her brain in her work. This time, she succeeded, and was just working her way through a scaling argument to get some sense of the relative orders of magnitude of the various factors in her calculations when a tap on the door frame interrupted her chain of thought. She presumed Matt was back again.

“What is it this time?” she said, without bothering looking up. A woman's voice answered, in an American accent.

“Do you know where we could find Legolas Thranduillion?” Helena's head snapped up, and her eyes focused on two tall figures in the doorway, a woman in a mini skirt and knee-length platform boots with jet black hair and too much eye make-up, and a man with the same startling silver blond hair as Legolas. Helena felt her mouth go dry.

“Come in,” she managed to say, getting up rather ponderously and going over to the door to shut it firmly. Mary Sue raised an eyebrow at the size of Helena's belly.

“ _I never did see why Galadriel and Celeborn were so convinced it was an MPreg,_ ” she said in Sindarin to Haldir. She turned to Helena. “Sorry, rude of me not to speak English. I'm Mary Sue, and this is Haldir. He's a friend of Legolas.” She brushed her hair back from her ears.

Helena turned white as a sheet and sat down heavily on the chair nearest to her.

“Oh God, you've come to take him home.” She looked as if she was about to burst into tears, and Mary Sue cursed herself for being so stupid in her approach. She walked over to Helena and cautiously reached her hand out to touch the woman's shoulder.

“No, not that. It's entirely up to him. I'd have thought that you'd know him well enough to know that know one could take him anywhere without his consent. And you look like you know him real well. Biblically, in fact, if you get my drift,” she said, with a wink. “No, we're here for a different reason. We need his help. Can you take us to him and we'll explain to both of you?”

Helena blinked back the tears that had been forming, and tried to smile.

“Can you give me a moment while my heart rate gets back to normal.”

~o~O~o~

Helena ushered Haldir and Mary Sue into the flat, only to find Legolas already there. With yet another pair of ethereally beautiful elves, seemingly identical to one another.

“So you're Legolas,” said Mary Sue. “My, oh my, Arwen was right, you are even prettier than Haldir.” Legolas looked at her and Haldir in confusion. He was more than a little taken aback by what appeared to be a low growling noise, apparently coming from Haldir. Haldir realised, with a sense of frustration, that this was the point in conversations where he would usually have said something cutting to Mary Sue in English, but that he couldn't do so in front of an audience who actually spoke English themselves.

Legolas settled for acknowledging Mary Sue's greeting with the faintest of courtly bows, then stepped across the room and wrapped Helena in a hug.

“Are you okay, _meleth nin?_ ” he asked, brushing her hair back from her forehead before kissing her gently. The other male elves exchanged a look of surprise, not used to seeing such behaviour in public.

“I've been calmer. This is very, very weird. I think I'll feel happier when things have been explained to me,” Helena replied. Legolas slid his arms from around her body, but kept holding one hand.

“I see you've met Haldir and his companion. They are from Lothlorien. These,” he gestured to the brothers, “Are Elladan and Elrohir, sons of Elrond, the Lord of Imladris.” Recognising their names, the two stepped forward. Elladan gave a small bow, mirroring the one Legolas had given to Mary Sue. Elrohir took Helena's free hand and raised it to his lips.

“ _Enchanted, my Lady,_ ” he murmured, in a low, seductive tone. Legolas gave him a killer look. Elladan rolled his eyes. Haldir snorted.

“ _Down, boy!_ ” muttered Mary Sue. Elrohir immediately turned his attention to her.

“ _And you must be the delightful Mary Sue. I've heard so much about you, including rumours of your sensual charms,_ ” he said, his voice like honey. He took her hand, but rather than kissing her fingertips, turned it over and pressed his lips lightly to the inside of her wrist. Helena watched the exchange from the other side of the room; she didn't understand the words, but she had no difficulty picking up on the suggestive note in his voice. Elrohir gave Mary Sue a slow, almost lazy smile, and continued, “ _I'm looking forward to forming an extremely close working relationship with you._ ” Legolas was amused to hear another of the strange growling sounds coming from Haldir.

“ _With the emphasis on 'working', Lord Elrohir. This gentlewoman prefers blonds, and in any case, I am way out of your league,_ ” said Mary Sue, flashing him a dangerous smile in return. “But we are being rude, talking Sindarin in front of the Lady Helena.”

“Umm, just Helena, not Lady Helena.” 

“It's a sign of respect,” whispered Legolas. “And Mary Sue is trying to make a point to Elrohir.”

“Damn straight,” chuckled Mary Sue. “He's being a prize ass-hole. Feel free to translate that into Sindarin for me. Anyways, we need to get down to business.” And she proceeded to tell Legolas and Helena the lengthy story, starting with Legolas's own disappearance, Gimli's discoveries in the Haradwaith, Mary Sue and Galadriel's electronic espionage, the return mission, the sorceress and movements between worlds, and Gimli's eventual capture by the enemy. “We still don't really know anything about the sorceress, other than her name, Elohtolpa. And we don't know what became of the Ringwraith when he entered this world. But we do know that Gimli is being held in the Brunwasser compound at Porton Down. Bloody PFIs. So anyway, you guys have got to take down a load of private security contractors, mostly ex SAS, US Navy Seals, Special Forces. Shouldn't be too much of a problem, should it?”

“Just try not to kill any of them,” said Helena. She rubbed her temples with her fingertips and gave a long sigh. “I feel such a bloody idiot. I've spent months trying to get the equations to come out, and it turns out that all this time it was Galadriel's magic.”

For the second time that day, Mary Sue placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I wouldn't be so sure. Something's been going on at this end too. I think there's more than one way to approach this particular problem. Anyway, before that we need to get organised for this 'raid'. Legolas and I are going to go round the second hand shops for some black clothes suitable for a commando raid. Haldir – you and Helena go to a toy shop and buy a load of face paints.”

“Face paints?”

“Yeah, after the event the police will be checking army surplus outfits for people buying camouflage paint – but no one's going to look twice at CCTV footage of a heavily pregnant woman and her partner buying stuff in a toy shop. Oh, and some baby wipes to clean them off afterwards.”

“Why don't I go with Helena?” asked Legolas.

“Because I need to talk tactics with you – I know a helluva lot from the internet, but you've actually been living here and can give me an insider's view. Then tonight, you and Haldir get to go and break into a vet's surgery and steal some tranquillizer darts – if you're going to be good boys and not kill anyone, you need some humane way of immobilising them. _Meantime,_ ” she said, switching to Sindarin, “ _You two boys stay here and behave yourselves. You,_ ” she glared at Elladan, “  
em>Stuff him,” glaring at Elrohir, “... under a cold shower if he shows any signs of getting out of hand.”

~o~O~o~

Legolas paused in the middle of rifling through a rack of jeans, a frown on his face.

“What's the matter?” asked Mary Sue.

“Just thinking about Galadriel's stories,” he said. “If she wrote me into this world, and wrote my arrival in Oxford, with a healer conveniently on hand, what else did she write? Did she write the love story too? What if my feelings aren't my own, they're just figments of Galadriel's imagination. What if Helena's feelings are just figments of her imagination too.” To Mary Sue's horror, the male elf looked utterly distraught.

“Your feelings are your own. I've read all of Gladdy's stuff. It's a bit shit actually, and she gave up on the story after you'd been found on the tow path. Oh, and Helena and her friend were meant to be men, it's just that she's really bad at genders in Basque. Your relationship was all your own doing.”

Legolas broke into a smile. “Well, with a bit of help from her friends and copious amounts of drink!”

“Yeah, Galadriel may have started the ball rolling, but all sorts of things have been happening that she's not in control of. Do you want a real laugh?” asked Mary Sue.

“Go on.”

“You've got to promise not to tell Elladan and Erohir.”

“I am the soul of discretion,” Legolas said, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“Jeeze, I don't know whether to believe that or not. But, what the hell. Haldir and I, we got caught together under his cloak. In Rohan.”

Legolas dissolved into helpless laughter. “You're married?”

“Yeah, a real marriage of inconvenience.”

“Well, I suppose that explains Haldir's weird snorting noises while you were flirting with me, and when Elrohir treated you to his finest seduction technique,” Legolas grinned.

“No way! He was just messing with you. We weren't doing anything under the cloak, other than trying to stay warm. Soon as this is over, we're gonna get Galadriel to send us to Nevada so we can get us a divorce,” Mary Sue explained. 

Legolas raised his eyebrows. He had just had a flashback of standing in the cafe, his arms up to the elbows in soapy water, loudly protesting his lack of interest in Helena. Suddenly, he realised just how ridiculous he must have seemed to Cathy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the rules of courtly love, only extremely favoured paramours were allowed to kiss the inside of a Lady's wrist. So Elrohir is trying it on, big time!


	25. To the rescue

**Author's note: MPreg has gone mainstream in the UK. A well known chain of shops currently has a series of ads featuring a family of blue aliens buying furniture, electrical goods, etc. from their shops. The latest one has the father of the family going through pregnancy. It ticks most of the clichés (gherkin cravings, cankles, pregnancy classes...).**

**I'm running out of typefaces – in this chapter italics are going to cover Sindarin and Westron and Khudzul – hopefully you can work it out for yourselves from the context which is which.**

There was an unpleasant grating noise as Mary Sue ground the gears of the people-carrier, not for the first time that night.

“What?” she said, in response to the tension she could feel from the other four. “I'm not used to a stick-shift, okay?” Since none of the others had the faintest clue what she was talking about, they remained silent. She bumped along the dark road, headlights dipped. The narrow B road hugged the landscape, clinging to the contours of the rough moorland and scrub they were crossing. Eventually she came to a T junction and pulled onto the narrow strip of grass between the edge of the tarmac and the dry stone wall.

“End of the road, boys,” she announced. “You know the drill. Radio silence unless absolutely necessary. Legolas has the burn phone and the number committed to memory. I'll be back in two and a half hours exactly to pick you up. If for any reason you're not there, I'll be at the secondary rendezvous over the other side of the moor at 8.00 am.”

The four elves piled out of the car, then unloaded their gear from the back. They avoided looking at the tail lights as Mary drove off, not wanting to destroy their night vision. As their eyes adjusted to the starlight, they slung their packs over their shoulders, made sure their knife belts were in place, picked up their bows and climbed over the wall. They had spent the previous night and most of the day familiarising themselves with a 1:25000 map of the moor. Having not seen such a detailed map before, the four were very impressed by the accurate picture of the landscape it enabled them to build up. 

Mary Sue had supplemented this with a set of satellite photos, downloaded onto her laptop before she left Lothlorien (she explained that it was easier to manage the internet routings to cover her tracks there; at a pinch she could grab more data by using a stolen laptop and a dongle in a very public place, but she didn't want to leave an electronic trail if necessary). The photos had been a mixture of google earth images of the moorland itself to supplement the picture they were able to build up from the map, and a set of images of the facility itself, gleaned from a spy satellite Mary Sue had hacked into. (She'd remarked that she found it a somewhat amusing commentary on the 'special relationship' that the US felt the need to have a geostationary satellite over southern England; probably only Helena had appreciated her amusement). 

Mary Sue had also taken the trouble to create an archive of a week's worth of images, at 5 minute intervals, and animated the results to give some idea of how frequently the boundary of the facility was patrolled. The four had a reasonably good idea of the patterns of movements of the guards, assuming they hadn't changed in the last few days. They also knew when the guards' shifts changed, which had enabled them to plan the timing of the whole attack, long enough into a shift in the dead hours of the night for complacency to set in, but with plenty of time to escape before the next shift arrived and raised the alarm. Mary Sue had also hacked into Brunwasser's e-mail server again, and had pinpointed the building in which Gimli was being held. On the whole, she felt she'd managed to do about as much reconnaissance and planning as possible. Barring any snafus, things should work out. 

The four climbed over the dry stone wall and set off at a brisk jog across the moorland. They had memorised star charts of the alien stars of Helena's world, and used them to navigate by. The facility was about three miles away, which they thought should take about half an hour, allowing for the darkness and the rough ground. Then about an hour to incapacitate the guards and rescue Gimli, with another hour back (working on the assumption that he might well be injured and need to be carried). The moorland was mostly heather, with patches of marshy ground soft under foot after all the autumn rain. Drier patches sported thickets of gorse and every so often gentle splashing noises forewarned them of the presence of stream which needed to be crossed. 

True to their predictions, in just under 30 minutes they found themselves looking at the high fence which surrounded the cluster of low buildings. Mary Sue had told them the fence was fitted with motion sensors, but also that she'd managed to hack into the security system and at precisely half-past the hour, she would disable the sensors and set the security cameras to a patched up loop of archived footage so they showed nothing of interest to anyone watching. Legolas kept a close eye on his watch, and as the second hand passed its mark, signalled silently to his companions. They watched as the guard walked in front of them, right on schedule, and as he rounded the corner of the building, the four elves climbed rapidly over the fence and dissolved into the shadows behind the buildings.

Outside Building 3 Haldir swiped the card Mary Sue had given him across the reader on the door frame. The guard behind the desk was nowhere near as alert as he should have been. By the time he looked up, Elladan was already on him. The elf clamped a hand over his mouth and pushed home the tranquilliser dart. Within moments, the man slumped forward unconscious. Haldir gagged him and wrapped tape round his wrists and ankles, tucking him behind the desk out of sight of anyone passing the door. Splitting into pairs, the elves began a systematic search of the corridors. Two more guards had the misfortune to encounter the elves. The elves rapidly dispatched them with more of the tranquilliser darts.

Eventually Elrohir found the detention wing. He gestured to the others, holding up four fingers to indicate the number of guards. Legolas smiled. Four! One on one. Not really odds in favour of the humans. The guards didn't know what hit them. Four black garbed shadows flew across the room, one to each of them. A restraint hold, a hand over the mouth, a sharp prick to the side of the neck, then unconsciousness. 

The four elves set off down the corridors, sliding back the hatches over the viewing windows, checking each cell in turn.

“ _Yrch,_ ” said Elladan. They were staggered by how many orcs and uruk-hai were held in the block.

“ _Anyone would think they're building an army,_ ” said Elrohir.

“ _Maybe that's precisely what they are doing,_ ” said Haldir thoughtfully. Legolas cut through their discussion, his voice suffused with relief.

“ _Found him!_ ” It didn't take the elves long to break down the door. Gimli looked in amazement to see the four of them. Legolas strode across the cell to the narrow bed the dwarf lay on, and reached out to help him to his feet. They clasped each others' shoulders in greeting.

“ _Mellon nin,_ ” said Legolas.

“ _It pains me to say this, but I am very glad to see you, Master Elf,_ ” replied Gimli. He tried to take a few steps towards the door, and swayed. Legolas steadied him.

“ _Are you badly injured, my friend?_ ” the elf asked.

“ _I've been better, but I'll do,_ ” came the answer.

As predicted, it was much slower going on the return journey. Gimli tried hard to keep up, but his injuries slowed him. By the second mile, he was tripping over tussocks of reeds, stumbling into boggy patches of marsh and had fallen more than once. By the third mile the elves were taking it in turns to support him, halfway to carrying him. When at last they reached the road, the dwarf had spent all his reserves and was completely exhausted. Legolas looked at the stars, assessing how much of the night had passed.

“ _Mary Sue should be here soon._ ” Sure enough, within a few minutes, the battered people-carrier rounded the bend and came to a halt beside them. They lifted Gimli onto a quilt laid on the floor at the back, then climbed into the seats. Mary Sue managed to get the car into gear on the first attempt, and took off down the narrow country lane.

~o~O~o~

It was about 2.30 am when they returned to the flat. Checking that no one was looking, the twins carried Gimli up the stairs between them, with Haldir and Legolas bringing up the rear. Mary drove the car off to Blackbird Leys, where she found a patch of waste ground. The twisted, charred metal skeletons of other cars already adorned the weed-strewn, muddy patch, and she figured that one more burnt out car added to the collection wouldn't attract much attention. Having torched the car, she jogged back to the main road and headed back towards the centre of town, carefully skirting any CCTV coverage as she went.

She let herself into the flat to find Helena providing food for the elves. Gimli was lying, on the edge of consciousness, on the bed in the spare room, while Lottie cleaned his wounds. She looked up at Mary Sue.

“These guys haven't heard about the European Convention of Human Rights, that's for sure.”

“Or they don't care, more likely,” replied Mary Sue.

“Is it very bad?” asked Helena, who had appeared at the door.

“He's malnourished, has quite a few lacerations and a lot of bruising. Looks like he's taken a few beatings. I've given him a sedative – decided since I didn't know his physiology I'd better stick to herbal remedies. Legolas reckoned valerian should be fairly safe – apparently herbalists in Middle Earth use something similar. He didn't seem to like it much. Legolas practically had to hold him down. I don't know what they were saying to each other, but it sounded like a playground argument between a couple of five-year-olds.”

Lottie finished her task, then drew the covers over Gimli. She stretched her arms above her head and yawned. 

“I'm going to head for home now – tending to tortured dwarves on top of a full day in hospital isn't my idea of a relaxing time. Get in touch and let me know how he is tomorrow.” Helena accompanied her to the door.

“Thanks,” she said. “That doesn't seem to cover it, but, well, thanks again.”

“It's okay. Ring if you need anything.” Lottie headed down the stairs and Helena locked up behind her. 

“Me and Haldir and the other two are gonna bed down in the sitting room,” said Mary Sue. “I'll let you get some rest, Helena.” Mary Sue joined the other elves. Legolas caught sight of Helena, who beckoned to him.

“ _I bid you good night, mellyn nin,_ ” Legolas said to the other elves. “ _I shall see you tomorrow._ ” He followed Helena into their bedroom. To his surprise, no sooner had he closed the door than Helena threw her arms around him, tangling her hands in his hair, and kissed him, a hot, messy kiss full of want and need and desire.

“I've been so scared,” she whispered,her breath warm against his cheek. “I was terrified in case something went wrong.” She unwrapped her hands from behind his neck, only to slide them down his chest and over the taut muscles below, grasping hold of the bottom of his t-shirt and tugging it up over his head.

“What are you doing?” he asked, voice filled with confusion.

“I'd have thought that was bloody obvious,” she replied, placing one hand flat on the smooth skin of his chest and pushing him gently backwards. The back of his knees met the edge of the bed and he toppled onto it. Helena sat astride his lap, wound one hand into his hair and drew him close, kissing him, teasing with her tongue, gently tugging at his lips with her teeth. With the other, she started to undo his jeans. Legolas made a strangled, gasping noise and tried to wriggle out from underneath her.

“My friends have got incredibly acute hearing,” he said, voice betraying an odd mix of panic, amusement and want. Helena just put a finger to his lips, then pushed his jeans down to his knees. With a fluid movement, she pulled her own nightgown over her head. Then she slid her hands with agonising slowness over his shoulders and back down to his chest. Another gentle shove and she tipped him backwards until he lay on the bed spread, hair spread round his head in a blond cloud. She let her fingertips trace his collar bone, then ran them down his chest in the way that months of practice had taught her drove him to distraction.

“They'll just have to stick their fingers in their ears and go 'la la la',” said Helena, and bent forward to capture his lips in another kiss. Legolas reached up and slid his hands down her sides, letting them come to rest on her hips. Desire overcame embarrassment and he kissed her back, his need rising to meet hers.

In the sitting room, Haldir and Mary Sue heard the growing panic in Legolas's voice. When Helena mentioned that it was obvious what she was doing, Haldir blenched. At the words “la la la,” Mary Sue chuckled and walked over to Helena's cd collection.

“Jeeze, this woman has shit taste in music. Where the hell's Van Halen when you need them?” she demanded.

Haldir joined her. He perused the music for a moment, then reached out, took a cd and handed it to Mary Sue. 

“This should drown things out. In fact, with a bit of luck, if he recognises what it is, it'll put him off entirely,” he said.

“ _What's going on?_ ” asked Elladan.

“ _Normal human physiological response to danger. Specially to your loved one being in danger,_ ” said Mary Sue, popping the cd into the stereo.

“Or maybe they just like bonking like bunnies,” added Haldir in English (half hoping he was speaking loud enough for Legolas to hear).

“Whatever,” Mary Sue responded, then switched back to Sindarin. “ _Don't worry, Haldir and I have everything under control._ ” She turned up the volume on the stereo.

Back in the bedroom, Legolas did indeed pause, then started to laugh.

“Talk about a sick sense of humour. Ravel's Bolero! I'm going to kill Haldir tomorrow.” 

“Don't stop,” Helena moaned, frustration filling her voice.

“Sweet Elbereth, do you honestly think I can keep going with that racket in the background?”

~o~O~o~

Gimli woke in a strange bed, and took a moment or two to get his bearings. He vaguely remembered the previous night, the cell being unlocked and seeing his friend Legolas in the doorway. Body racked with pain and exhaustion he had struggled, half been carried, across a stretch of bleak moorland, before being bundled into a vehicle the like of which he had never seen and being transported at speed beyond his wildest imaginings. Eventually, he had been brought into a strange dwelling place, where a young woman with dark skin, darker even than the people of the Haradwaith, had tended his wounds before giving him (or forcing upon him) some sort of sleeping draught.

Cautiously, he moved his arms and legs, and found that the worst of the pain seemed to have gone, although he was still rather stiff. _Made of tough stuff, we of Durin's race_ , he thought to himself, before sitting up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. For a moment, his head swum, and he almost sat back down, but steeling himself he forced his legs to carry him as far as the door. He found himself in a small, narrow hallway with several doors. From behind one of them, he heard quiet voices, speaking in a language he didn't understand. He paused to listen for a moment. One was a woman's voice, the other, filled with a familiar, silvery laughter, was his dear friend Legolas. He opened the door to greet them and froze in shock.

Legolas was in bed, propped up against a heap of pillows, a soft smile on his face, and eyes alive with good humour. Snuggled against his bare chest, smiling back at him with a look of unalloyed happiness, was a young woman with long, chestnut brown hair. Mercifully the quilt was pulled up far enough to cover most of her, but from what he could see of her bare shoulders, it was clear she was naked too. Their smiles vanished as they caught sight of him, only to be replaced by a rather charming blush on the face of the young woman and a look of annoyance on the elf's face.

“ _Oromë's balls, Gimli. Didn't anyone teach you to knock?_ ” Legolas burst out, brow furrowing. Gimli retreated hastily, and slammed the door behind him. He stood in the hallway, mouth agape. The door opposite opened, and Gimli found himself face-to-face with Haldir. The damned elf was obviously finding a good deal of amusement in his embarrassment.

“ _Come in here, Gimli. I think we can promise not to shock you any further. Sit down and I'll get you some breakfast,_ ” Haldir said with a laugh. Gimli did as he was bidden. Moments later, Legolas entered, dressed in a strange pair of loose leggings, made from some sort of coarse blue material, and a shapeless tunic. He was followed by the young woman, also in some form of leggings and tunic. Gimli's eyes widened as he registered the fact that she was with child. Without thinking, he blurted out the first thing that came into his head.

“ _Is the child yours?_ ”

“ _Nay, Gimli. I was merely disporting myself, naked, in bed with another man's heavily pregnant wife_ ,” replied Legolas, affecting a jaded, world-weary tone. A snort of laughter, probably Elrohir's, came from one of the heaps of bedding on the floor. Gimli's jaw dropped. What had happened to his very prim and proper elven friend? Seeing his shocked expression, Legolas started to laugh too.

“ _I jest, you fool! Of course I'm the father. Let me introduce you to my betrothed, Helena._ ” Legolas smiled at Helena, and pulled her into a lingering kiss, allowing his hand to drift from her waist down to her behind. Gimli goggled, then looked away in embarrassment. Then it occurred to him that Legolas was deliberately setting out to discomfit him.

“ _Go wrap yourselves in a Rohirrim's cloak,_ ” he said, testily. Helena looked quizzically at Legolas.

“I think the nearest English idiom is 'get a room',” supplied Legolas.

“Well tell your friend we had a perfectly good room. At least it was till he burst into it unannounced,” Helena replied. Legolas translated, and Gimli burst out laughing.

“ _Your woman's alright by me, laddie. She has a ready wit, and I'll wager, keeps you in line nice/ly. _”  
Gimli paused, then added, “ _So, when is the baby due?_ ”__

__“ _Babies,_ ” said Legolas with a smug grin, “ _Twins. A few months yet, we think_.”_ _

__“ _Twins, eh? That's my boy. You may have been a late starter, but you're certainly making up for lost time now._ ” _ _

__“What are they saying?” Helena asked Mary Sue._ _

__“Oh, male bonding crap! Gimli's just doing the whole back-slapping routine over your elf's amazing virility in fathering twins,” Mary Sue responded._ _

__“Huh,” said Helena, clearly unimpressed. “Tell them that since we know they're non-identical, it's nothing to do with his virility, and a lot to do with my amazing fecundity.” Mary Sue laughed, and translated. Legolas gave a sheepish grin. Gimli looked completely baffled._ _

__**Author's notes:** _ _

__**Apologies to Ravel – there's a lot of his music which is wonderful, especially his string quartet, which is incredible. It's just that Bolero is played way too often (and I grew up in the glory days of Torvill and Dean, and that put me off entirely). For those of you who don't do classical music, just mentally fill in the most hackneyed piece they can think of – Phil Collins, Michel Buble, Celine Dion, (whatever that subsection of the 'yoof of today' who are terminally uncool and have no musical taste are currently listening to – actually, since Legolas is involved, maybe it had better be Justin Bieber)… I think you get my drift. Not that Bolero is anywhere near as bad as any of these.  
** _ _


	26. Yes, Minister

**And another genre gets ticked off the list – political thriller! Oh, and maybe dystopian futuristic genetic-engineering sci fi too (think Gattacca).**

 

Henry Prior stood at the tall windows, looking through the shrapnel proof nets and down to Horse Guards Parade. He could see a troop of the Household Cavalry going through their paces. He found himself mulling over the rather cryptic message he had just received from his opposite number at the Home Office. Behind him, he heard someone come into the room.

“Sir, the Home Secretary has arrived,” the Private Secretary announced.

“Thank you, Mark. Show her in.” 

The Private Secretary opened the heavy panelled door. “The Foreign Secretary is ready to see you, Home Secretary,” he said. He ushered an elegantly dressed woman in her early fifties into the room. Two men in their forties followed her, together with a younger, athletically built man.

“Henry, glad you could see me at such short notice,” she said, reaching out to shake his hand.

“Julia,” responded the Foreign Secretary. “Given the security classification you mentioned, I didn't really have a choice about the time frame. Shall we go into the secure room?” His PS led the way to the inner door and held it for the party to enter.

Once the group had settled round the large, polished wood table in the centre of the room and the doors had been secured, the Foreign Secretary opened proceedings.

“Would I be right in thinking this concerns the recent incident at Porton Down?” he asked.

“Word travels fast around Westminster, alarmingly fast given the security classification on this material,” the Home Secretary replied.

“Well, I do actually have a higher security clearance than you do. But interestingly, you are right about Westminster gossip. Our friend Simeon, sorry, 'Simon', was fishing for information.” The Foreign Secretary clearly had no time for his cabinet colleague's attempt to shed his upper-crust background in the pursuit of the popular vote.

“And what did you tell him?”

“Nothing, of course. He may be the Chancellor of the Exchequer but he doesn't have the security clearance. Besides, I don't owe him through the old boy network, or the fagging system, or whatever else those Wykehamists got up to in their schooldays.”

“Being an outsider does give one a certain detachment,” the Home Secretary said dryly. “There have to be some advantages to being a northern grammar school boy, or, heaven forfend, a woman.” She gave a cynical smile which did not reach her eyes. “Anyway, enough idle gossip. Shall we turn to the matter in hand?” She handed a DVD to the PS. “If you'd be so kind, Mark?”

The PS put the DVD into the player, and the Home Secretary started her commentary.

“This is CCTV footage from the incident at Porton Down. Most of the cameras were disabled by a very sophisticated cyber attack, but this one was an old camera, overlooked in the last tech upgrade. It was stand alone, recording to good old VHS tape. The image quality isn't brilliant, but we have footage of four men, in black with gloves and balaclavas, attacking and disabling four guards. Bear in mind that these guards, although employed by a private contractor, Brunwasser Corp, were all ex SAS or US special forces.”

The group watched as the attack unfolded with frightening speed. Well coordinated, the attackers took one guard each, pinning them then injecting some sort of anaesthetic. “Veterinary tranquilliser darts, stolen from a vet's surgery near Reading the night before,” Julia Marlowe explained. The footage continued. Two of the masked men stood watch while the other two disappeared through a doorway. They reappeared several minutes later, with a small, dwarf-like man supported between them. All five then disappeared out of sight of the camera.

“I'd like to introduce you to Toby Wyatt. He's on secondment from the MoD for a few months. Toby is a Sandhurst graduate, who studied physiology and sports science before the army. When at the MoD, he works in military tactical planning, advising our planners on what can and can't be feasibly asked of the human body. His secondment involves applying the same sorts of principles to policing.” Marlowe indicated the athletic-looking man sitting to her left, who nodded to the Foreign Secretary.

“If I may,” said Wyatt, reaching out for the remote. “I want to take you back to the sequence where our masked intruders disable the guards. But first a bit of background. Foreign Secretary, I believe you used to be a keen cyclist before political duties cut into your time.” Prior nodded in assent. “Would I be right in assuming you still follow the Tour de France with interest every year?”

“Yes, rather looking forward to the fact that next year's opening stages are going to pass through my constituency, through the bits of the Dales where I used to go out cycling with the local CTC as a lad,” said Prior, a rare, uncomplicated smile on his face.

“And I take it you're familiar with the rather chequered history of drug use in the Tour? One of the interesting pieces of research to come out last year compared performance, both of the leaders and the peleton, in last year's tour with those at the height of the US Postal doping scandal. Basically, we have a very clear idea through studying VOmax and other physiological measures of what the maximum, undoped performance of humans is, and what is indicative of what one might call 'superhuman' levels of performance. On these indications, last year's Tour was clean, whereas at the height of the doping scandal, we were probably seeing performances about 10% in excess of what the unaided human body could achieve.”

“While I find this interesting on a personal level,” Prior said, “I rather fail to see what it has to do with incidents at Porton Down.”

“As background, a familiar handle to hang the next piece of analysis on.” Wyatt skipped forward through the DVD, selecting a re-jigged version of the scene they had already watched, of the attack on the guards. This time, however, it was slowed down, and various points on the attackers' bodies – hands, feet, elbows, knees, heads – had been marked with fluorescent dots. “We use this technique to analyse movements in sports. We can do gait analysis (individual gaits are as unique as fingerprints), correct technique, look for unusual physiological behaviour. Applying it to this clip has proved remarkably informative. Both the speed of the movements and the reaction times they show are quite extraordinary. Way outside the range of normal human performance. Not just normal, undoped performance, but performance with state-of-the-art performance enhancing drugs. And believe me, in the military, we know what performance with state-of-the-art drugs look like – we have no qualms about gaining an unfair edge over the competition. With that in mind, I can assure you that these people are quite literally 'superhuman'.”

Prior looked in stunned silence at Wyatt, then at the Home Secretary.

“There's more,” said Marlowe. “In the brief time between the attack and our people at Porton Down informing us of the security breach, Brunwasser cleared out their holding facility, which is itself interesting. One wonders what they were hiding. You and I are both of the opinion, I know, that matters of national security and military intelligence should not be farmed out to the private sector and that patriotism trumps free market ideology. Sadly our Wykehamist colleagues are not of this opinion, and it looks as though their cavalier enthusiasm for the diktats of Milton Friedman are about to come back to bite us.” She turned to one of the two older men. “This is Professor David Jones, one of our forensics experts. He and his staff have had the opportunity to conduct a thorough investigation of the cell block recently vacated by Brunwasser.”

Prof. Jones cleared his throat, then started his account in a rich Cardiff accent. “It appears that in addition to the short man whose rescue seems to have been the main motivation behind the attack, several other prisoners were being held in the facility. We have managed to find hair and skin traces in several of the cells, which we've subject to DNA analysis. And the results are unprecedented. We appear to be dealing with at least two different forms of non-human DNA. One cell contained one type, the others, about twenty in all, appear to have contained members of a second species.”

Prior passed his hand across his eyes, then looked at the Home Secretary. “Please tell me the date is April the first. I don't know what to make of this. What the hell is going on? Some sort of weird genetic engineering programme?”

“Even stranger than that, we think,” said Julia, and opened her briefcase. She slid a slim folder across the desk to him. “I've had GCHQ keeping an eye on Brunwasser for a while – 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer'. And the people you suspect of being enemies posing as friends closest of all. It's interesting to see the range of things they pay for. Including several PhD studentships and a postdoctoral fellowship in the theoretical physics department at Oxford. Specialising in a rather arcane branch of knowledge apparently called the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. It looks as though these people may quite literally be from a different world.” She looked at Prior's gaping mouth. “It's rather a lot to take in, isn't it? I've been wandering round feeling like someone's hit me over the head with a blunt instrument since I was briefed on this yesterday evening.”

The Foreign Secretary did his best to pull himself together. “Do we have any leads? Any on the mystery superhumans in black? Or on what Brunwasser might be up to?”

“Two, we think. One is an ex-SAS employee of Brunwasser who disappeared a few days ago. He appears to be still in contact with a current member of the SAS, who happens to be on leave at the moment. And that current SAS sergeant is the godson of a police detective inspector in Oxford who has been putting out feelers, off the books and unofficially, into Brunwasser.” She paused, and something about her expression made Prior think that the really big revelation was yet to come.

“And the second?”

“About five months ago, a colleague of ours went round the Brunwasser facility. Playing the 'this is my constituency, your industry is vital to the employment prospects of our local area' card.”

“And who was our honourable friend?” asked Prior.

“Our 'friend'” - the sneer in Marlowe's voice was obvious - “Simeon, I mean, Simon. The Chancellor of the Exchequer.”

Prior's Yorkshire accent became even more pronounced. “Bloody hell!”

~o~O~o~

Legolas was drawn from his meditative state by Helena suddenly sitting up in bed beside him.

“That's it,” she muttered, breathless with wonder and triumph.

“What's what?” the elf asked.

“Last night, you remember Mary Sue asked me about my work.” 

Legolas cast his thoughts back to a long discussion between the two. Helena had patiently explained about quantum states and entanglement, relativistic space-time and singularities, topologically strange membranes, drawing sketch after sketch to illustrate her points, doing her best to explain to someone whose maths, although good, was nowhere near the standard Helena operated at. Mary Sue was obviously bright, though. She'd asked a series of questions which showed that she was getting at least the vague outline of what Helena was talking about; at any rate, more of an idea than he was, Legolas had ruefully admitted to himself. Mary Sue, being interested in computers, had quite a good grasp on logic, set theory and the issues arising from approximating real numbers by finite strings of decimals. She had homed in on one issue in particular, to do with numerical truncation, and whether there was such a thing as genuine quantum chaos, or whether it was an artefact of the computational models Helena was using. At this point, Legolas had admitted defeat and gone into the kitchen to discuss military tactics with the other elves and Gimli. He was drawn back from his recollections by Helena's voice.

“You know I've been fretting that the numerical models aren't giving the same answers as the exact calculations for the simple, toy model case where I can solve the problem analytically? Well, I think I might be able to get the same answers if I do things in a spectral model instead, if I re-jig the spectral model to be suitable for non-Euclidean geometries,” she announced, face lit up with excitement, eyes sparkling.

“ _Meleth nin,_ I haven't a clue what you're talking about, I'm afraid,” said Legolas, smiling at her with a mixture of amusement and love. He shut his eyes against the sudden onslaught of light from the bedside lamp, then reached out towards her warm body, only to find she had gone. She was already over the other side of the room, pulling on her clothes. She smoothed her top over her belly, pausing to pat the bump absent mindedly. He looked at the clock beside the bed – yes, it agreed with his own internal sense of time. “My beloved, beautiful, wildly desirable, wonderfully intelligent mathematical genius, it is only 5am,” he said, with a fond laugh.

“I know, I just have to go and try to sort this out before I lose the thread of thought. I'll see you round about lunchtime, maybe a bit later. Love you.” And with a quick, tender kiss as she passed, she let herself out of the bedroom. He heard the front door open and close.

~o~O~o~

It was actually late afternoon when Helena came back from the theoretical physics department, bubbling with excitement at the progress she had made, and full of a new-found sense of purpose, which seemed to have flowed into all areas of her life. After a brief, whispered conversation with Legolas, she went to have a 'discussion' with the others.

“I think we've managed to sort things out so you don't all have to keep sleeping on the floor,” said Helena, with a smile. A very broad smile, Mary Sue thought. In fact, a relieved, “guests, like fish, start to stink after three days” sort of smile. “Obviously, Gimli can stay here in our spare room. He at least has the decency to sleep soundly for most of the night and doesn't have unnaturally good hearing. As for the rest, well... Jonathan's offered to move in with Matt for a bit – in fact, I think it's really just speeded up something they were thinking of doing anyway. So Elladan and Elrohir can move into Jonathan's old room.”

Legolas chipped in at this point. He translated the offer of the room, then added, “ _This is on the understanding that Elrohir behaves himself round Sally. I should point out that although she's a bit of an amateur, her aim with a longbow is still good enough to put an arrow in you if she needs to damp your ardour._ ”

“ _Seducing mortals? What sort of scandalous, unprincipled rogue do you take me for?_ ” said Elrohir, winking at Legolas. Legolas frowned at him.

“And Haldir and Mary Sue – Lottie says you can stay in their spare room,” Helena continued.

“Has it got twin beds?” asked Haldir, anxiously.

“No, a double futon,” said Helena.

“But I know we can rely on you to be a perfect gentleman,” said Legolas, an evil expression on his face. He wandered into the kitchen humming _Bolero_ quietly. Haldir grimaced. Mary Sue laughed.

Helena sat down on one of the dining chairs. She had got to the stage where the couch was no longer comfortable. In fact, to her annoyance, very few things were comfortable any more, including lying on her back. Mary Sue sat down opposite her, and started to ask about her breakthrough, but they were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. With a groan, Helena got to her feet, rubbing the small of her back, and went to the front door. As she got there, a knock announced that whoever it was had had the sense to buzz themselves into the block with the 'trade' button, and was actually in the stairwell. She opened the door, to find herself face-to-face with Southwell and two well built but wiry looking men, one in his late 30s, the other in his 20s.

“Detective Inspector,” she said, frantically wondering how to stop him coming into the flat and discovering the elves. Legolas had already managed to pass as human, Mary Sue almost certainly could, but all five of them together? She thought not.

“Peter, please,” Southwell said. “This is strictly off the books. I was actually looking for your lodger, Lech. But,” his glance clearly took in her very pregnant belly, “I see your circumstances have changed, so I guess you don't have him staying with you any more.” 

Helena heaved an inward sigh of relief; she had just been given the perfect get-out-of-jail-free card. She was about to answer when Legolas came into the hallway.

“ _Meleth nin_ , who is it... Oh!”

Southwell looked at the elf. Unlike their previous meeting, Legolas currently had his hair in warrior braids. The man's eyes widened at the sight of his pointed ears.

“I think I was right about you all along. I always wondered about your archery. You shoot like it's your main weapon, like it's the one you depend on for your life. No one gets that attitude from role-play games. But no one here fights wars with bows and arrows either,” Southwell said.

“I suppose you'd better come in,” said Helena. She ushered them into the sitting room. Southwell and his companions stood blinking with astonishment as they took in Gimli, Haldir, Elladan and Elrohir.

“You're the group who attacked Porton Down,” he said. Before they could move a muscle, the three men found themselves at knife point. Southwell held his hands out in a gesture of surrender. “It's okay, we're on your side. You need to listen to Eddy's story.”

“Put the knives away,” said Helena, firmly. “The three of you, sit on the couch with your hands where they can be seen so no-one gets jumpy. Then we'll have some introductions. Then you can tell your story.” The three men sat down in a row as instructed. Elladan and Elrohir sat cross-legged on the floor, Haldir and Mary Sue at the table. Gimli stood by the window, and Legolas went to stand next to him. Helena sank gratefully onto the remaining chair.

“This is, I suppose you'd call him my godson, Steve. And this is Eddy. Eddy and Steve used to serve in the same unit, in the SAS. Maybe I should explain about the SAS,” Southwell began.

“It's okay, we already know about the SAS,” Mary Sue said. She quickly said something in Westron for the benefit of the twins and Gimli, then said, “Go on.”

“It's Eddy's story, so I'll let him tell it,” said Southwell. Eddy looked round the room, then ran a hand over his buzz-cut, and gave a huge breath, making a huffing noise.

“Before I start,” he said, “It would be nice to know who I'm talking to.”

“That seems fair,” said Legolas. “As I think you've realised, I'm not really called Lech, nor am I Polish.”

“Yeah, I think Southwell might have worked that out,” said Mary Sue, “Your Polish sucks. Real 'My postillion has been struck by lightning' stuff – not exactly what you'd call colloquial. And you can't get the genders right to save yourself.”

“My real name is Legolas, and these are my compatriots, Haldir, Elladan and Elrohir. And Mary Sue, who I suppose is one of my compatriots too, though her story is rather complicated. She's... well, she's pretty unique.”

“Thank the Valar,” said Haldir. Mary Sue flipped a finger at him. Legolas glared at the two of them, then continued.

“When I say 'compatriots' I mean we're all elves, though we actually come from different countries within our world. And this is my friend Gimli. He's a dwarf.”

“Elves, what, like fairies at the bottom of the garden, sitting on toadstools type stuff?” said Steve with a snort of laughter. Mary Sue chuckled in response and translated for the two Rivendell elves. Elrohir responded with a phrase which sounded pretty disparaging.

“Elrohir would like to remind you that he had his knife to your throat a few moments ago, and wants to know if you'd like to repeat the 'fairy' comment,” said Mary Sue, then added “Though personally I feel if he was secure in his sexuality, he wouldn't feel the need to protest about it.” Haldir grinned, and translated this into Westron. Elrohir grunted an expletive; both his twin and Gimli looked very amused.

“Do you think you could all stop bickering and let Eddy get on with his story?” Helena asked.

Eddy looked round the room at all of the company. “When I left the SAS I did what a lot of us do; I started looking for jobs with private defence contractors. I had a couple of hairy experiences in rather unstable bits of the Middle East. So I felt like I'd really landed on my feet when I got a job with Brunwasser, doing what seemed like an overpaid security guard's job at their complex at Porton Down. Anyway, I started to feel pretty uncomfortable about it when these prehistoric-looking neanderthal type creatures arrived in the cells. They were vicious, ugly bastards with yellow fangs and scarred faces, a real handful to look after. But the way some of the Brunwasser people treated them, that was bloody inhuman too. To be honest, I wouldn't like to say which were the bigger neanderthals.

“But the really scary bit came when the local MP came to have a look around. It was quite a few months back now. I've been lying low ever since, hoping that none of the Brunwasser people could track me down. 

“The local MP is Simon Westbrook, the Chancellor of the Exchequer – that means he's probably second only to the Prime Minister in terms of importance,” Eddy explained. (Mary Sue interjected at this point to explain that this would be a bit like Denethor's second-in-command prior to the return of King Elessar.)

“Anyway,” the man added, “About half way round the tour, they took him into the 'gateway' room.” Helena perked up at this point and started listening very attentively. He continued, “It's a room full of scientific kit and a thing that looks a bit like the 'Gate' in 'Stargate'. Westbrook got quite close to it, joking about how he hoped it wasn't switched on because he didn't want to end up where the neanderthals came from. The scientists assured him it was powered down, then suddenly it started to glow, this sort of unearthly turquoise-blue. The chief research tried to make a grab for him, but it was like this force field was in the way, and he was stuck inside this column of glowing blue light. His face went really weird, all twisted-like, and he gave this horrible shriek. It just didn't even sound human. And everyone in the room was absolutely shitting themselves. The scientists were running round like headless chickens. The Brunwasser guys were yelling at them to switch it off.

“Then all of a sudden the column kind of shrunk back into the floor. Westbrook collapsed to the ground. They got a medic there, real fast. He checked his breathing and pulse – the guy was alive but out cold. They laid him out on the floor and started having an argument about whether they could call an ambulance. The head guy from Brunwasser, an American bloke, didn't want to. His assistant just kept yelling 'that's the bloody Chancellor of the bloody Exchequer, you can't cover this up.' Half way through them arguing, Westbrook started to stir. The doctor helped him sit up. He seemed to come round really quickly. Then he started to say that he was perfectly alright, it was a 'regrettable incident but no harm done' or some sort of typical posh-arsehole understatement like that.

“I was standing at the back of the room, looking pretty much straight at his face. And it was really scary – the voice sounded like his, but it was like a robot was imitating him or something. A really good imitation, but something was inhuman about it. And his eyes. I've seen some scary shit in my time, really scary shit. Religious fanatics trying to rig roadside IEDs. Terrorists who'd torture their own mother for the cause. But this guy's eyes. They were pure evil.”

Haldir translated as quickly as he could, and Gimli asked something. Haldir looked at Eddy. “Can you describe the shriek?” he asked.

“It was this weird scream, it kind of went up and down. Like you'd imagine a bird of prey straight out of hell to sound.” Gimli and Haldir had a rapid, intense conversation, then Haldir turned to the others.

“Gimli says that when they were in the Haradwaith, his comrade Anborn managed to spy on some kind of secret ritual. The sorceress Elohtolpa summoned one of the remaining Ring Wraiths. She had him confined in a column of blue light like the one Eddy describes, then at the end of her incantation in the Black Speech, he disappeared. We think he may have appeared in the column of light you saw.”

“Holy shit, you mean that the Brit equivalent of the Treasury Secretary has been possessed by a Nazgul?” said Mary Sue.


	27. Speed Bonny Boat

**Note:  
There is no country house at Camasunary (there was a bothy, now no longer in use). But if John Buchan could, by his own admission, play fast and loose with the geography of Skye in 'The 39 Steps', I reckon I'm in good company. (By the way, I owe an enormous debt to John Buchan: if I can get anywhere close to the incredible man-hunt scene through the mountains at the end of 'The Three Hostages' I shall have done my job and some). Notes on pronounciation for the place names are at the end of this chapter.**

 

The group had talked late into the night. Eddie had explained that Brunwasser's original idea for capturing the orcs had been to create the perfect soldier. The problem all military leaders faced was that, contrary to what one might think, human beings were often not really all that good at fighting wars. Only something like 5 to 10% of soldiers were actually prepared to kill without qualm; most of the rest of an army typically were prepared to lay down covering fire, getting the enemy to keep their heads down, but not prepared to aim at people. The percentages could be increased by training programmes specifically designed to brutalise new recruits. But these tended to create psychological problems. As a result, commanders tended to find themselves with groups of armed men with discipline and anger problems who couldn't be relied on to follow orders, or improvise tactics in a rational way. The orcs seemed like the ideal way to get groups of soldiers for infantry work who could be relied upon to be utterly brutal. And, although not exactly disciplined, they were at least expendable in the event that they got out of hand. 

Helena had been shocked by the idea that one would deliberately brutalise recruits in order to make them more likely to kill. Legolas shocked her still further by pointing out that in effect, orcs were the result of this sort of strategy taken to an extreme level: orcs had originally been elves who had been tortured in the dungeons of the dark lord until, utterly corrupted, they became creatures of evil themselves. Helena had looked at him in horror, and taken his hand, holding it as if she never wanted to let go of him.

Mary Sue had excused herself relatively early on to go to an internet cafe which she thought would be sufficiently busy to use her laptop to do some research without leaving an electronic trail, or at least, only leaving a trail that was sufficiently anonymous not to be easily traced. It was the results of her evening with the computer that formed the topic of the morning's discussion.

“Okay,” she began, “I've got three main things to report. First off, I've been in contact with Galadriel, and she's going to try to send us some reinforcements. Anborn, Damrod and Mablung should be arriving some time soon.

“Second, I've been hacking into the e-mail account of Westbrook, the guy who's possessed by the Nazgul. He's been doing some interesting stuff. That's interesting in the sense of godamn scary. He's been trying to use his government contacts to get access to intelligence information, and also to try to get access to nukes. Fortunately, the two people with that kind of level of access, Marlowe, the Home Secretary and Prior, the Foreign Secretary, can't stand him. Marlowe, because she's a woman and the real Westbrook is a misogynist bastard. And Prior because of complicated stuff about the English class system that I don't really get. So at least he's being held up on that front. But he's now putting out feelers trying to track down former Soviet warheads on the Russian black market.”

“Which is scary why?” asked Haldir. Mary Sue started to answer, but Legolas cut her off, his face grim.

“Because any single one of them could destroy an entire city. Minas Tirith, gone in an instant. Lothlorien reduced to a firestorm. The crop growing area of Rohan poisoned for millenia. I now realise that this is why Galadriel went to the lengths of sending me into this world. She could see the dangers if Sauron's former allies got possession of technology from this world,” said Legolas. “What's the third piece of information?”

“Yeah, what you got, Mary Sue?” said Southwell, trying to lighten the mood a little. Mary Sue bounced up and down with excitement, picking up the reference to her TV alter ego.

“Well, the third thing is that I've got a lead as to where the Nazgul might have gone. He's possessed Westbrook, right? Well it turns out that Westbrook has a country house up on one of the islands off the North-West coast of Scotland, a really remote place called Camasunary on the Isle of Skye. I think he might have gone up there. I've picked up details of e-mails circulating Brunwasser in the last day or so, detailing the use of prison transports from one of their subsidiary companies. These were used just after our rescue of Gimli, and just before the British security forces came to investigate the security breach at Porton Down, to shift a large number of people – or something else – north. I've got us an Ordnance Survey map of southern Skye.”

She unfolded a large map and spread it on the floor. The elves, Gimli, and the three men clustered round it. The southern half of the island lay in the surrounding sea, numerous peninsulas and inlets, sea lochs, giving a complex coastline. Tightly clustered contours showed the outlines of rugged mountains, with detail on the map indicating numerous crags. A broad valley, Glen Sligachan, ran down the centre of the map, from a sea loch in the north to the coast at the south, where the house of Camasunary lay, in the angle between a stretch of coast running westwards, and a stretch running south along the edge of a finger-like promontory. There was no road, only couple of footpaths, one running along the glen by the river, the other along the coast. Just north of the house, the river broadened into a loch just under a mile long, with a low hill between it and the house. Supplies for the house were, presumably, mostly brought in by sea. Along the east side of Glen Sligachan, various hills were dotted. Those at the north end were steep, with scattered cliffs and boulder fields. 

“The red Cuillins,” said Southwell, who knew the area quite well. He drew his finger southwards along the east flank of the valley, stopping over an area of massed crags and steep slopes. “Then we get to Blà Bheinn, an offshoot of the same geological structure as the black Cuillins. Very complex, rocky terrain with a lot of big cliffs.” He pointed to the other side of the valley, to the west of Camasunary. There, the landscape became completely wild and untamed. A horseshoe of mountains, desperately steep and rocky, surrounded a deep, narrow loch, Loch Coruisk. “These are the main body of the Cuillins, the steepest, most challenging mountains in the country. In terms of mountaineering difficulty, they're the French Alps, just without the glaciers.”

“So, how would we approach the house?” asked Legolas.

“As you can see, there are three paths – the main one leading from the north down Glen Sligachan, the coast path coming from the south along the edge of the Elgol peninsula, and the coast path coming in from the east, from the Black Cuillins. All these paths can be seen clearly from the house. However, you can see that there's a very slight rise, only about 50 feet, just behind the house. You could approach from the north, if you cut down one of the gullies from the summit of Sgurr na Stri, forded the river at the foot of the gully, then followed that little burn,” (Southwell's finger traced a small stream on the map) “till you were behind the low rise.”

“And getting to Sgurr na Stri?” asked Haldir.

“Either from the west, over the black Cuillins, or from Glen Sligachan, by following this stalkers path between Druim Hain and Sgurr Hain, then down through the corrie.”

“What's the betting they'll have watchers on the path through Glen Sligachan?” asked Haldir.

“Very high, if they've got any sense,” said Southwell. “After your stunt at Porton Down, I don't think we'll catch them unawares again.”

“So we come in over the black Cuillins,” said Legolas.

“That's not going to be fun at this time of year,” said Southwell. “The weather will be bad, and we'll only get about 7 hours of daylight to play with, plus a bit of twilight before sunrise and after the sun goes down. It's 57 degrees north, within a degree or so of Juneau, Alaska.”

“There's something else we have to think about,” said Steve. “Like Pete said, when you guys went into Porton Down, you took everyone unawares. This time they're going to be expecting you. And according to Eddie, they'll have semi-automatic weapons.”

“Yes, I thought of that too,” said Mary Sue. “I've put together some video clips for the dwarf and the elves.” She switched to Westron. “ _Elladan, Elrohir, Gimli, come and watch this. You too, Legolas, Haldir._ ”

She set the videos going, and the group watched as a sequence of film clips started. Some were of firing ranges, straw stuffed dummies being chopped in half by bursts of semi-automatic fire. Others were clips from action films. Finally she showed them news reports of massacres carried out by unhinged individuals. The thing that staggered the inhabitants of Middle Earth was the sheer numbers of people killed in such short time scales. “ _is what you're up against. I know how good Legolas is, but one of these weapons could kill all of you before he even got an arrow to the string. We have to come up with a set of tactics to neutralise the threat_.” She explained what she'd said to the men, then asked, “Any ideas?”

“Surprise is about the only weapon we have,” said Steve. “That and forcing them into a close-quarters fight where they can't fire off bursts indiscriminately because they'd take out their own side too.”

~o~O~o~

They had spent the rest of the day planning and laying in supplies, with a view to travelling the next day. Helena had come up with the idea of involving her friends, arguing that if Lottie could get away from the hospital at short notice, having a doctor who specialised in emergency medicine could prove a very good thing. Fortuitously, Lottie's shift patterns fitted round their plan, and Tom agreed to take some overdue leave to help out. Although a geneticist by training, he reckoned he could probably do some basic first aid if necessary. The surprise addition to the party had been Sally. Legolas felt that she was good enough with a bow to protect the group to be left safely away from the action, namely Mary Sue, Lottie and Tom. Southwell also volunteered to stay with this group, explaining that in his 50s, there was no way he could be counted as combat-ready.

Mary Sue had gone out again to get in touch with Galadriel and finalise plans for reinforcements. Galadriel had agreed to write a story sending the Ithilien Rangers directly to the north of Scotland. Mary Sue had had to be quite firm with her: Galadriel's initial thinking was that somewhere called 'Hogwarts' was close by (the Lady of Lothlorien had mentioned being really enamoured of fics involving someone called 'Drarry', which left the other elf none the wiser). Mary Sue explained, rather impatiently, that putting the Rangers into the wrong world would not help anyone, and eventually it was agreed to send them directly to Glen Brittle on the west side of the Cuillins.

Eddie and Steve had sat down with Elladan, Elrohir and Gimli, and with Haldir's help, had taught them a simple set of hand signals for communicating: 'wait', 'enemies', 'friends', together with indications of locations and numbers, and gestures to indicate who should go where in the event of an attack. Southwell, Tom and Legolas had split the shopping between them to avoid arousing too much suspicion, and had come back with some cheap tents and sleeping bags for the base camp.

Helena spent most of the day feeling sick with worry.

~o~O~o~

Legolas sat hunched uncomfortably in the back of the van, his long legs folded up into far too small a space. They seemed to have been driving since the beginning of time, Mary Sue taking turns with Eddie. Steve and Southwell were driving the other van, the motley group divided between the two vehicles. They had driven the length of England in the daylight, crossing the border hills in the afternoon, and making their way through a large city (Glasgow, Eddie informed them) just as it began to get dark. And it got very dark, so dark he could have been back in Arda. No more orange glow of street lights reflecting off the low clouds. This was genuine wilderness, stretching on for mile after mile. The rain fell unrelentingly, streaking the windscreen, the scrape of the wipers grating on Legolas's nerves.

He had never felt this overwhelming sense of foreboding going into battle, not even before the Black Gates. But then he had never been so close to anyone before, never had so much to lose before. His parting from Helena had been emotionally charged. He had seen his own grim expression mirrored in her own, her lips set, chin raised in defiance of the turn of fate that was separating them. He could tell that she wanted to cry, but was determined not to, her eyes large and luminous with unshed tears. Their last kiss had been one of desperation. He had watched out of the van window, watched her figure upright and unbending, hand held protectively over her belly, her face expressionless as if set in stone. Then they had reached the end of the street and turned out of sight. For some time afterwards he had been oblivious to his surroundings, eyes staring sightlessly into the middle distance, his mind seeing only the memory of her face.

The journey was one of unrelenting tedium. Too dark and wet to see anything much, it passed in near sensory deprivation save for the grate of the wipers and the roar of the engine. Legolas had long since decided he hated vehicles with engines with a passionate hatred, a hatred that this journey was doing nothing to assuage. To start with, they passed villages and small hamlets at perhaps ten minute intervals, but as the journey stretched on, the signs of human habitation became more infrequent. There was one long stretch where the road wound up a wild, exposed hillside, and they drove in the dark for miles, a high, flat open moorland pitted by bogs just about visible, with a ring of mountains encircling them in the far distance. Eventually they passed a lone building, an inn on the old drove road from the islands to the cattle markets of Glasgow, Eddie explained, the oldest inn in Scotland. Then the road plunged down a grim, desolate valley, narrow, with mountains looming over them like the ramparts of some castle from a nightmare. Once past the end of the valley, they found themselves passing more villages, then a sizeable town.

Legolas caught the cry of gulls, and the smell of the sea, and realised to his surprise that the town was a port. Eddie pointed to the map, half shouting above the sound of the engine as he indicated the complicated series of interconnected inlets and sea lochs that meant that the sea penetrated this far inland. Legolas registered the name of the town, a place called Fort William. Eddie informed them that there would be another 2 or 3 hours before they reached the island, then another couple of hours driving to get round to the far side of the Cuillins. As the last lights of the town petered out, they found themselves enveloped in darkness again. As the hour got later, the rain finally stopped, the thick blanket of oppressive rain clouds being replaced by ragged fragments of cloud against stars and the fitful light of a crescent moon.

They journeyed on, through wild and open ranges of low mountains, eventually coming to another seaside town. Just beyond the edge of this, the road made its way through a narrow cutting with rocky walls before emerging to run round a sweeping upward curve onto an enormous bridge, a bridge that took them over the sea itself and onto the Isle of Skye. From there, the road mostly hugged the coastline, occasionally cutting inland to shorten its path, before turning west along the edge of a sea loch. They came to a junction beside another inn. 

“Sligachan,” said Eddie. He and Mary Sue swapped places, having agreed that he should drive the stretch of single track road. Mary Sue, whose backstory included an upbringing in the deep south of the US, couldn't be trusted to pull into passing places on the left hand side in the unlikely event that they met another vehicle. Another hour or so, and they finally found themselves bouncing down the narrow track to what turned out to be a campsite, perched incongruously on the dune grass just above the sea. 

“Even at this time of year, there will be a handful of climbers camping here so we won't look out of place,” Southwell had explained when they had made their plans. “We can pass ourselves off as a university club trip or something like that.” The odd assortment of elves and mortals piled out of the vans and pitched the tents purchased the day before. Alerted by the noise, three figures appeared out of the dark; Anborn, Mablung and Damrod greeted their comrades of old, and were introduced to the earth humans. The plan was to rest for a couple of hours until daylight, traverse the Cuillins in the day, skirt down the gully from Sgurr na Stri out of sight of the house at Camasunary, then wait till nightfall to ford the river and approach the house under cover of darkness. Tucked inside sleeping bags, the group rested as best they could.

~o~O~o~

The sun rose late, casting a wan, greyish light, as it does in the depths of winter in northern latitudes. Legolas emerged from the cramped tent he had shared with Haldir, Gimli and the twins. He was met by a vista of dune grass, then a narrow beach, with grey sea beyond, waves whipped into white horses by the breeze. Looking up, he noted low clouds scudding across the sky, driven towards the mountains by a westerly wind. Through chinks in the low cloud, he could see high wisps of cirrus, streaked with pink. Steve followed his gaze upwards.

“The edge of a front coming in off the Atlantic,” he said. “It will be wet by the afternoon, strong winds too, especially high up.” Legolas looked over at the mountain tops just visible above the bank which formed the edge of the rough moorland. There were patches of snow dotted here and there, with a white dusting indicating that much of the previous night's rain had fallen as snow higher up. He could see grim, forbidding black crags.

Steve spread out the map and traced the route they would take with a finger. It was probably about 7 miles as the crow flew, but longer once they'd negotiated the mountains, and the rough ground would make for hard going. The group divided into parties of threes and fours; the plan was that if anyone was watching, they would look like separate groups of climbers setting off for an expedition round the main ridge. The grouping was hard to work out – the SAS men knew most about the terrain, but splitting them meant having someone able to translate; putting all the English speakers in one group left two groups unable to read the writing on the maps. In the end, they settled for the first option, with Legolas, Steve and Gimli in the first party, the twins and Damrod the second, and Haldir, Eddie, Mablung and Anborn bringing up the rear. They planned to regroup about two thirds of the way there, at the stepping stones over the stream flowing out of Loch Coruisk and down to the sea. Legolas realised how thin their numbers were, and found himself wondering if the force they had assembled would be woefully inadequate for the task that lay ahead.

They made short work of the steep bank behind the campsite, and set off along the stalkers' track heading east. The first two miles were straightforward. The path was well-tended and they made good speed, skirting the steep slopes at the end of Sron na Ciche and round towards the corrie beyond. But as the path started up the steep slope into the corrie itself, they cut off to the south east, tracking across the hillside. Now the ground was treacherous: bogs interrupting their progress (surprisingly wet given the steepness of the slope) and boulders strewn everywhere. Close to an hour of this saw them at the bottom of a brutally steep, rock covered hillside leading to the summit of Gars Bheinn. Legolas pushed ahead, the man and dwarf puffing up the slope behind him. As Steve had predicted, the weather was starting to close in, cloud already enveloping the higher summits, and a fine rain that seemed to penetrate every crevice of their clothing beginning to fall steadily from the sky.

“We need to get over the summit of Gars Bheinn before the visibility goes completely,” said Steve. The gneiss these mountains are formed from is magnetic - it messes with compass bearings – you can't get a reading to closer than about 15 degrees of where it should be. We'll have difficulty negotiating the north east slope of the mountain if we can't see where we're headed.” Legolas translated for Gimli, who groaned inwardly at the thought of having to climb the remaineder of the steep slope at speed, but nodded his agreement and bent himself to the task in hand. They fought their way upwards as fast as the dwarf and man could manage, but, true to Steve's predictions, the cloud had closed in by the time they reached the summit. To make matters worse, the wind was now brutal, gusts threatening to knock them off their feet, and the rain had turned to sleet, driven horizontally, feeling like needles against their faces. They sheltered as best they could behind the summit cairn, trying to protect the map from the whirling maelstrom. Steve pointed the way – down the summit ridge to the south east a hundred yards or so, then head down the north east flank down a gully between two rocky spurs. Gritting their teeth, they headed off down hill, buffeted by the wind. It wasn't long however, before they could turn off down the leeward slope.

To their relief, this slope was nowhere near as steep as the one they had laboured up. But if anything, the ground was rougher, a complex mess of crags, some not much more than the height of a man, others more substantial. It was not a slope where they could risk losing their footing, and the rock was wet and treacherous beneath their feet. It was slow, tedious work picking their way downhill, the experience strange and claustrophobic in the enveloping grey cloud. Visibility was only tens of yards, and the sounds strangely muffled now they were free of the howling wind, the world reduced to the constant trickle of myriads of streams running down to the invisible sea below.

Eventually they came out of the bottom of the cloud. Loch Coruisk lay below them, inky black in its dark cleft in the mountains, the slopes on the other side shrouded by grey mist. They picked their way down the last 500 feet or so, and settled in the lee of some peat hags, just next to the stepping stones across the narrow burn that bubbled from the end of the loch and flowed in a shallow, sparkling river down to the sea. They shared out some food between them and waited. Before long, they were joined by the other two groups. 

Sgurr na Stri turned out to be a much more straightforward proposition than Gars Bheinn had been. It was much lower, less steep, and the terrain, though still rocky, was nowhere near as fierce. The challenge, in the mist clinging to the summit, was to make sure they descended the correct gully and arrived at the river on the eastern side out of sight of the house. The gully itself was unpleasant. It would have been much easier to follow the broad flank above rather than slippery rocks and mud, with water gushing down round them. But to do so would have been to expose themselves to prying eyes in the house below. Eventually they arrived on flatter ground beside the river, and found a patch of rocks hidden behind an overhanging bank of peat and heather where they could sit out the hour or so till darkness fell.

~o~O~o~

After their companions had left in the morning, the four humans and Mary Sue had packed the tents and gear back into the two vans and had driven all the way round to Elgol, on the coast south of Camasunary. Surprise was needed on the way in to the enemy's house, but on the way out, the straightforward 3 mile trek along the coast path seemed to offer a rapid exit. A mere 12 miles or so by sea from where they started, the drive avoiding the mountain ranges was more like 40 miles by road, involving a trip nearly all the way back to the bridge to the mainland, then inland and along the south coast.

Lottie summed it up. “It's like a clock face. We're starting from 8 o'clock, and we need to get to 6 o'clock, but that's sea and mountains, and the centre of the clock is filled up with more mountains, so we need to go all the way round the edge.”

As Southwell drove, Mary Sue attached her dongle to the laptop. Once they got onto the main road near Broadford, she finally started to get a decent signal. She asked Southwell to pull off the road. 

“Just wanna check some intel,” she said. And this was the point at which Mary Sue made a mistake. She underestimated the opposition, both the bad guys and the good guys. She hacked into Brunwasser's mainframe with a view to trying to get a handle on the numbers of orcs and ex special forces mercenaries in the house. But, after the Porton Down incident, Brunwasser had tightened up on its computer security. Their tech experts had advised the head of the project not to close down the back door they'd found in the code, but instead to monitor access to it. Mary Sue's electronic enquiries set alarm bells ringing. The information she downloaded was logged, and the source of her cyber probing was identified. 

But alarm bells weren't just ringing at Brunwasser. Marlowe and Prior had ordered GCHQ to monitor Brunwasser's system (and their experts, having rather more years of experience than Mary Sue, were able to do this covertly). Both sets of computer experts were now onto Mary Sue. By the time she had got the information she needed, Brunwasser's representatives had identified the mobile she was using and had started to track it. More to the point, they had passed the information to the forces at Camasunary. Meanwhile, at GCHQ, all hell had broken loose. Marlowe was in the process of setting up an emergency session of COBRA, the Cabinet Office Briefing Room with the aim of getting permission from the Prime Minister to despatch an SAS unit to Skye.

“55 orcs and about 19 mercenaries, as far as I can tell,” said Mary Sue. She pulled the dongle out of the laptop, but crucially, did not switch off her mobile, unaware of the fact that her every movement could now be tracked. Southwell put the van into gear and set off again. Just south of Broadford, he took a right and headed down the road towards Elgol. Lottie reflected that in good weather, without the threat of death and destruction hanging over their heads, she would probably find the scenery amazing. As it was, she felt as though a full week of back-to-back nightshifts peopled entirely by uncooperative drunks was actually beginning to look pretty attractive. The van swayed along round endlessly curving roads for about an hour. Finally they bumped down the incredibly steep single track road, and stopped in an almost deserted car park in the small village. 

Lottie, Tom and Southwell set off back up the steep hill towards the post office to grab some more interesting food to supplement what they'd brought with them. Mary Sue and Sally made their way down to the pier, the mortal taking a pair of binoculars with her. Splitting up turned out to be their second mistake.

“What's that?” asked Mary Sue, her eyes picking out a boat approaching rapidly, bouncing across the waves.

“Some sort of inflatable rib, four blokes on board,” said Sally, binoculars to her eyes.

From half a mile up the hill, Southwell spotted the rib.

“That's a Zodiac, the sort used by special forces,” he said. He started to jog down the hill, speeding up as he saw the rib pull into the side of the pier, one of the men jumping onto the pier with a rope in hand. Two more men jumped over the side. He saw them gesture to Mary Sue and Sally. The two moved slowly, cautiously to the edge of the pier.

“Christ, tell me they can't just be going to get in the boat...” he said. Then he caught a glimpse of the barrel of a gun. The man holding it was trying to shield it from sight. 

Mary Sue and Sally got into the boat, and the three men jumped in after them. With a roar of the outboard, the rib was gone, bouncing across the choppy sea back towards the house at Camasunary. Mary Sue and Sally were in the hands of the enemy.

 

**  
Pronunciation:**   
**Camasunary = Kamm-ah-soo-nah-ree.**   
**Sligachan = short 'i' like 'intent', short 'a's.**   
**Cuillins = Koo-linns (short 'i' again).**   
**Beinn / Bheinn = ben (like the man's name) or venn (like the diagram) - Gaelic is one of those languages where the leading consonant of a word gets modified depending on whether the preceding word ends with a consonant or a vowel. Means lumpy, amorphous shaped hill.**   
**Blà Bheinn = blah venn.**   
**Sgurr = skoor. Pointed hill.**   
**Sgurr na Stri = skoor nah stree.**   
**Loch. The 'ch' is like the German – 'ich', 'dich', not like the English 'church'. Means lake (or in the case of a sea loch, something much closer to a Norwegian fjord).**   
**Loch Coruisk = Loch Korr-oosk. ('o' sounds like 'awe').**   
**Sron na Ciche = Stronn a keesh (For those of you familiar with the film “Highlander”, the dramatic sword fight on the pinnacle of rock in the middle of a big cliff face takes place on the Cioch on the north face of Sron na Ciche. I've actually climbed it!)**

**Galadriel was sort of right about Hogwarts: in the films, the Hogwarts express runs along the Fort William to Mallaig railway line, and there is indeed a ferry from Mallaig to Armadale in the south of Skye.**

**Playlist: OK, a lot of stories seem to have this, so for what it's worth, here's mine! I've been typing this up in the evenings while listening to that great British institution, the Proms (it's making me really miss living within easy distance of central London). And they've come up trumps with appropriate background music for writing this chapter.**

**I don't know if you remember way back in chapter 11, Legolas was listening to Shostakovich's 7th (the Leningrad). Well, I've been treated to a superb performance of his 10th by the  
National Youth Orchestra of the USA (the Proms on TV), and they've got to the second movement which is a musical portrait of Stalin. Seems appropriate for writing about Nazgul-possessed evil politicians, somehow.**

And we've also had a performance of Wagner's Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods) by the Berlin Staatskappelle, which seems quite appropriate for the gravity of the situation.


	28. Three Elves walk into a bar

Mary Sue paced up and down the narrow room. She had been doing this for several hours now, since they were thrown into the cell. The feeble daylight through the high, dirt-smeared window near the ceiling of the semi-basement room was now fading fast, so she guessed it was well after 4.00 pm. A feeble naked bulb hung on a flex from the ceiling, casting a sickly light into their prison. Sally looked up from where she sat on the dusty floorboards, back against the wall, arms wrapped round her knees.

“Will you stop doing that? It's doing my head in,” Sally said, fear making her voice sharp and angry.

“Can't help it. Too wound up to stay still.” But sensing that Sally was close to the end of her tether, Mary Sue stopped, leaned against the wall opposite her human companion, then slid down it into a sitting position. She put her head on her knees, shutting her eyes, deep in thought. Her hand cupped the bruise on her cheek where one of the men had struck her when she'd seized a moment on the boat to throw her mobile phone overboard. Obviously they'd been looking forward to seeing what information they could glean from it. She was rather surprised that she and Sally had not yet been interrogated, but she supposed that they were being left to stew, with a view to them getting into such an over-wrought state that their resistance would already be half gone through fear of what was to come, making the eventual questioning easier for their captors. 

There had to be something she could do. Memories of the way she and Haldir and the Rangers had rescued Gimli came back to her. Maybe there was a strategy that would work. She didn't think that she and Sally had a realistic chance of escape, but maybe, perhaps, they could do something to even the odds for the other elves and their mortal comrades. Even if that meant that they themselves would come out of the situation badly. Or not at all. She shook her head. Dwelling on that wouldn't accomplish anything. She thought back to some of the hand-to-hand combat techniques Haldir had taught her on long evenings by the campfire on their journey south to the Haradwaith. For a moment she got distracted by the memories, and smiled to herself. She'd rather enjoyed the excuse for a wrestling match – tussling with Haldir had a certain appeal. She wasn't sure what she'd enjoyed most – ending up pinned to the ground by him, or the rare occasions when she'd managed to land up on top, astride his rather pleasantly muscled body. Though actually, she realised, she'd be equally happy just to have another of their silly arguments, specially now they just went through the motions of squabbling more out of habit than anything else. With a sigh, she forced her attention back to the present. No point thinking that a blunt approach to combat would work. Instead, everything depended on distraction and misdirection.

She waited in silence as the light in the window faded to gloom and the wilds outside became steadily darker. It all hinged on how quickly she could read human psychology, how rapidly she could weigh up what sort of a man her captor was. Eventually, the wait was over. She heard the sound of the door being unlocked and opened, and a man came in, bearing a couple of plates of some sort of stew and a couple of tin mugs. He wasn't wearing any sort of mask. Mary Sue took this to be a bad sign. Their captors didn't care if they saw them; they clearly didn't mean for her or Sally to survive long enough to describe them to anyone. Their death sentences had already been signed and sealed. In one respect, Mary Sue thought, that made it easier. She wasn't putting Sally at risk of anything that wasn't going to happen anyway. She looked up at the man.

She remembered what she'd read about the psychology of a certain type of hyper-masculine man, drawn to combat, and to violence, whether it be street fighting or rape or beating his spouse. She noted the look in this man's eye, a sort of flat, dead look, coupled with an anger flickering behind his eyes, and a hunger that seemed to grow when he took in the helpless, slumped position of the two women. Her gut instinct was that this was the rarest type, and most dangerous, the psychopathic rapist. It was enormously risky, but her only hope lay in trying to use this to her advantage. She shot him a brief look, then averted her eyes as if in terror, wriggling away into the far corner, crossing her arms in front of her chest. He put down the tray, and as she'd hoped, came towards her, rather than Sally, seemingly getting off on her display of terror. 

Reaching down, he hauled her to her feet. She pulled back against him, drawing him towards her. Then suddenly, without warning, she shifted her balance and brought her forehead crashing forwards onto his nose. She heard the crunch as it shattered, felt the splatter of blood spray over both of them. She brought her foot down on his instep with all her weight, then as he lost his balance sideways, used his momentum to spin him head first into the wall. He gave a grunt of pain, but recovered fast and made a grab for her. She turned with his movement, bracing her hip so that he rolled over the top of her as she ducked. His momentum carried him down to the floor. As hard as she could, she brought her DM-clad foot into contact with his head, just above the ear where she'd read the skull was thinnest. 

He lay there, inert. His breath came in grunts and snuffles, nose still oozing blood. 

“Should we put him in the recovery position,” asked Sally, in a small voice.

“Depends on whether you want him to recover. Personally, I can't say I do. Come on, we've got work to do,” said Mary Sue, and led Sally out into the hallway beyond the door, locking the door behind them. 

“We need to find the armoury.” Mary Sue set about a systematic search of the cellars of the building. After a few false starts, she found what she was looking for. The fifth door she opened revealed racks of semi-automatic weapons. As quickly as she could, Mary Sue worked her way along the racks, taking the firing pins out of all of them bar one. She checked the ammo clip on this one, chambered a round but left the safety on (“Cocked and locked,” she muttered to Sally). She put a handful of spare clips in one pocket of her fleece. She took a another quick look at the gun, and set it to “burst”. In the corner, she found a box of hand grenades, and stuffed a couple into the other pocket, together with a flare.

“Never know when they might come in handy. Let's get you out of here.” She started up the rickety wooden stairs, gesturing for Sally to follow. At the top of the stairs, she paused, listening. When she was as sure as she could be that the coast was clear, she opened the door. They seemed to be in what must once have been the kitchen of the house, in the servants' quarters at the back. She opened the kitchen door, which lay at the back, on the landward side. The faint light of dusk was dwindling, gloom gathering about the surrounding countryside.

“Head that way,” Mary Sue said, gesturing to the east. She shoved the stolen firing pins into Sally's pocket. “Wait till you're a good distance from the house then chuck these into a pool somewhere in the bog. Then keep going till the land begins to rise, then head south, skirting the hillside. Make sure you keep a couple of hundred feet above the coast path at least. You'll have to do most of the journey in the dark, but so long as you keep going with the uphill slope to your left, you'll be going in the right direction, and you'll eventually get back to Elgol. And keep moving – if you stop in this weather, you'll freeze. Just keep it slow and steady and don't exhaust yourself. Go!”

Mary Sue waited till Sally disappeared into the shadows of the peat hags, then shut the kitchen door. A few moment's investigation revealed the servants' back stairs, and she hastily and quietly made her way up to the attic, where the Victorian servants must once have had their bedrooms. It looked as though a few of the rooms were now being used by the Brunwasser troops, but mercifully, none were around. Mary Sue went into one of the empty rooms and poked her head out of the dormer window. True to its pastiche Victorian origins as a piece of “Scottish Baronial”, it boasted a crenellated parapet round the edge of the roof, in heavy dark stone. Mary Sue slung the semi-automatic round her neck, stepped gingerly across the slates until she could sit in the valley gutter between two angles of the roof. She slid down the lead flashing, coming to a halt behind the parapet. She crept along behind the parapet until she reached the north west corner of the house, where she found herself perfectly positioned with a vantage over the north side, from which her comrades would mount their attack, and the west side, where she could try to cause a diversion.

~o~O~o~

At the foot of the gully, Eddie and Steve watched as the Elves, Men and Dwarf from another world hunkered down amid the peat hags and waited. The Elves in particular seemed to have got waiting doing nothing to a fine art form. The hours crept by. Suddenly, Steve felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He took it out, startled. They'd agreed on no contact except in case of emergency. He drew his coat round himself and the phone so that no stray light from the screen would give away their position and opened the message.

“S&M: held captive.” It was short and cryptic. And Steve couldn't help a smile – by sheer coincidence the initials could make it look like a stupid joke if anyone was monitoring the SMS traffic. But his smile faded rapidly as he realised the seriousness. Not only were the two women in extreme danger, they were also in a position to blow the whole attack wide open. And he was absolutely clear on the training he'd received back at base in Hereford about torture: talk early, spill all you know. Because everyone talks sooner or later, and the sooner you talk, the less pain before you're dead. It's the job of your superiors to make sure you don't have enough of the full picture in your head to compromise the whole op. But Mary Sue did know everything – she'd helped to plan the attack. 

He gestured to Legolas, who came over to join him. As quickly as he could he told him the situation. The two of them came to a rapid agreement: no point sticking to plan A, which had been to wait for the dead hours of early morning to attack. They'd have to go as soon as it was completely dark. Legolas went over to tell the others. 

Steve heard Legolas speak the language that all of them, Men and Dwarf, could understand. But then he heard Haldir switch to the more musical language the Elves spoke when they were alone. There seemed to be some sort of very heated exchange taking place. Haldir, normally impassive, was visibly upset. Legolas laid his hand on the other's shoulder, and seemed to be trying to calm him. Eventually Haldir sat down on the ground, a stricken expression on his face. The two dark haired elves seemed to be trying to pretend not to hear the conversation, and engrossed themselves in checking their weapons.

~o~O~o~

Night finally arrived, dusk fading to inky blackness, and the group started on the plan. Earlier, Steve had explained to the inhabitants of Middle Earth about night vision goggles; they were amazed by the whole idea. He told them that the goggles worked by picking up body heat, and therefore, unfortunately, their best bet for approaching the house stealthily was to get very cold – in other words, take a dip in the river before making their way across the moorland. They waded across, laid their weapons on the far shore, then went back into the water and immersed themselves completely. Then, shivering, they started the slow trek up the gentle slope. Just before the summit, they dropped to the ground and crawled, avoiding any chance that they might be seen silhouetted. Still taking their time, so as not to work up any warmth, they made their way down the hill towards the house. They halted about 100m away, and Haldir and Legolas moved in on either flank to do some reconnaissance. They returned within moments, and using Steve's set of hand signals, communicated that there were 6 troops on the perimeter, all with guns.

Then suddenly, all hell broke loose. Mary Sue had been sitting behind the parapet, and with her superior eyesight had spotted movement in the heather. Catching a glimpse of a pair of figures approach, then retreat, she realised the time was right for a bit of distraction. She pulled the pin from a grenade, counted a couple of seconds, then lobbed it off the building towards the troops. 

There was a flash and huge noise. Three of the Brunwasser men were thrown clear of the blast, either dead or seriously injured. The explosion took both defenders and attackers by surprise. But the remaining defenders were more disadvantaged. The flash saturated their infra-red goggles and destroyed any night vision their eyes had built up. For the moment, they were blind. Mary Sue pulled out another of her stolen goodies, a flare, and launched it. Suddenly the landscape was bathed in unearthly, monochrome light. She could see the remaining defenders struggling to raise their guns. Mary Sue let off some short, sharp bursts of fire, and dropped two of them. The third turned his muzzle back towards her eyrie up on the roof, only to be shot by one of the approaching elves. He pitched face first onto the gravel, an arrow sticking out of his back. 

From above and behind her, Mary Sue heard the grating sound of the window being opened. She glanced up and saw a man climbing out, pistol in hand. She fired off another quick burst, then swung herself over the parapet. She traversed rapidly sideways along the stone lintel, then grasped a drainpipe and started to scramble downwards until she could reach sideways towards an open window on one of the upper stories. She dropped onto the carpet of the corridor inside. From her left, the sound of feet running down a wooden staircase reached her ears. She ran in the opposite direction, bursting through the door at the end of the corridor, only to find herself staring at a scene of complete chaos.

Mary Sue's run had brought her to the balcony running round the edge of a ballroom. Down on the floor below, a seething mass of men, elves, orcs and a lone dwarf were engaged in close-quarters combat, knives and axes being wielded with gory results. Mary Sue realised she couldn't shoot into the crowd without running the risk of taking out her friends. Instead, she crouched down in a nearby niche, taking cover behind a rather voluptuous Victorian copy of a classical statue, and waited for her pursuers. They were only seconds behind her, and they too paused, nonplussed by the scene below. Their hesitation was fatal. Mary Sue fired off a couple of quick bursts. She was just changing the clip when suddenly she felt a cold blade by her throat and an even colder voice in her ear.

“ _I think you are just the bargaining chip I need,_ ” the voice croaked, in a coarse and heavily accented Westron. She turned to find herself staring at the heavily scarred face of an Uruk Hai. “ _Lower the gun to the floor – carefully._ ” She did as she was told. “ _Now move – in front of me, down the stairs._ ” They made their way along the balcony to the curving sweep of stair at the far end, the Uruk being careful to stay sheltered behind Mary Sue. Just as she started to take the first steps down the staircase, she caught a glimpse of a familiar head of blond hair below.

“Haldir,” she yelled. The Uruk pulled her head back by the hair, exerting enough pressure with the knife to produce a bead of blood on her neck.

Haldir looked up and saw Mary Sue. Their eyes met. There was a wordless exchange of glances, then Haldir inclined his head just the tiniest bit to the right. With a fluid motion, he drew an arrow from his quiver, nocked it to the string and fired, just as Mary Sue moved her head a fraction in the direction he'd indicated. The arrow buried itself between the Uruk's eyes, point deep in his brain. As he fell, the knife blade scratched Mary Sue, but barely broke the skin. She stooped and plucked the knife from the monster's lifeless hand and ran down the stairs.

~o~O~o~

Sally stumbled across the hillside, blind in the darkness, feeling bitterly cold and terrified. She'd thrown away the firing pins, as instructed, and made it to the slope at the other side of the glen just as the light faded, but now she couldn't see a thing. She had no idea of how long she'd been walking for.

Suddenly things went from bad to worse. She stepped on a loose boulder. Her ankle gave way and she found herself tumbling down the hillside in a shower of loose rocks and scree. Eventually she came to a halt. She felt her face – her hands felt sticky, though whether the blood was from cuts on her hands or cuts on her face she couldn't tell; all her skin felt too numb with cold for her to register any pain. Unfortunately the cold did nothing to numb the pain from her ankle when she tried to get up. Before she could stop herself, she gave a shriek of agony. She crumpled back to the ground and lay curled up, whimpering. It was all she could do to stop herself throwing up. The world contracted in and became centred on the fiery agony surrounding her ankle. She didn't even hear the man approach. The first she knew was the gun barrel jabbing in her ribs.

“Who the hell are you?” the man demanded.

“S...s...Sally.” Between cold, fear and pain, she could barely form a coherent word.

“Bloody hell Frank, it's a woman!” a second voice came out of the darkness.

“What are you doing out here?” the first man asked.

“Who... are... you?” Sally said. Her brain vaguely registered the fact that if they were her pursuers from Camasunary, they would already know who she was.

“Need to know. And you don't. Where the hell have you come from?”

“Camasunary... captured.... friend still there... hostage.” Sally started to sob uncontrollably, body shaking.

~o~O~o~

Legolas had given up on trying to use his bow in the confined space, and was fighting with his twin knives, gutting orcs or slitting their throats with cool, detached efficiency. Elladan and Elrohir were protecting Eddie and Steve from the orcs as the two men crouched one either side of the doorway, firing their pistols to keep the remaining Brunwasser troops from entering the ballroom. Gimli was cutting a swathe through the orcs with his axe. Suddenly, Legolas noticed a new figure on the scene, by the windows at the far side of the room.

Mary Sue had been cornered by Simeon. In the scuffle, she'd lost her knife. Improvisation being her forte, she was armed with a brass statuette she'd picked off the shelf behind her head. It didn't look like it was going to help her much. The Nazgul advanced on her, morgul knife poised ready to strike. Legolas realised that there was no way he would be able to fight his way through the throng to reach her in time. In his peripheral vision, he saw Haldir watching with a look of horror. He was also too far away to get there. Legolas glanced quickly round, and spotted an opening.

He used one of the Uruk Hai as a spring board to leap upwards and grab the parapet of the balcony. With a fluid movement, he swung his leg up and heel-hooked the edge. The Uruk swung his sword towards Legolas's trailing leg, but the elf was too quick. He rocked his weight sideways, pulled himself smoothly upwards and vaulted over the balustrade. The Uruk roared in frustration, yellow fangs showing. Legolas seized a large vase from a nearby table and dropped it onto the monster's head. The huge beast dropped to the floor, poleaxed by the impact.

The elf's next move was to jump gracefully onto the top of the balustrade. Like a coiled spring, he crouched, then launched himself into space. Arms outstretched, he caught the chandelier in the centre of the ceiling and swung over the hordes of orcs below. At the highest point of the swing, he released his grip and flew towards the wall hanging above Mary Sue's head. Unsheathing one of his daggers in mid flight, he stabbed it into the heavy tapestry on impact. He slid downwards, the fabric ripping as he went, landing at the base, poised ready to fight.

Simeon paused in his advance towards Mary Sue, and turned to face Legolas. 

“Golug scum,” he hissed. The Morgul knife danced in his hand as he probed for an opening. He and Legolas circled one another warily, the elf holding his twin blades. The face that had once been Simeon's broke into an inhuman smile.

“You know the prophecies, the witchcraft with which Sauron surrounded his wraiths. We cannot be killed or bested in battle.”

Suddenly there was a dull thud as the brass statue made contact with the wraith's skull. Simeon dropped to the ground.

“Can't be killed or bested by a male. But I ain't male, honey, not last time I looked anyways,” said Mary Sue. Legolas flashed her a smile and knelt to check on the prostrate figure. Suddenly the glass in the window above their heads shattered. There were several earsplitting bangs and flashes, leaving everyone in the room completely disorientated, friends and foes alike. Then an evil smelling gas filled the room. Legolas clutched his throat. It burned. His eyes streamed with tears, as if someone had thrown pepper into them. Of the people in the room, only Steve and Eddie really knew what was happening. The SAS had arrived.

~o~O~o~

It took most of the night to sort out the mess. Sally had tried her best to explain the situation to the squad who had found her. Her explanation hadn't been very coherent, but they had at least got the idea that there were hostages and friendly troops in the building. They already knew from the intelligence GCHQ had supplied that for some unaccountable reason, the Chancellor of the Exchequer counted among the “unfriendlies”. They had also been briefed about the legion of strange monsters, though nothing quite prepared them for the reality.

Eventually, the surviving Brunwasser mercenaries, orcs and Uruk Hai were subdued. Simeon remained unconscious. Gradually, Mary Sue and her companions recovered from the tear gas. Gimli came round fastest, the elves felt the effects for longest. Steve, Eddie and Mary Sue managed to put the picture together for the SAS's commanding officer. Steve realised that he was in big trouble: a serving soldier caught up in an unofficial, unsanctioned operation. He'd be lucky if he got away with a dishonourable discharge. A court martial and long prison sentence seemed more likely. 

With the first light of morning, several Chinook helicopters arrived to remove the captives. A civilian air ambulance arrived for Sally and airlifted her to hospital to have her broken ankle seen to. Escorted by a group of SAS men, the group from Middle Earth set off along the coast path to Elgol.

Haldir and Mary Sue found themselves walking side by side. Realising that Elladan and Elrohir were within earshot, Haldir spoke in English.

“How the hell did you come to get captured?” he demanded.

“That's great, thank me, why don't you?” said Mary Sue angrily.

Haldir glared back at her in response, then said “I was worried sick.” His expression softened. “But you were bloody brilliant. If you hadn't been on that roof, we'd have been cut to ribbons by machine gun fire.” He gave her a huge grin, and her anger evaporated in an instant. The two of them walked on for a bit. Steve caught up with them.

“I'm still a bit confused – relieved obviously – but confused as to why the Brunwasser people were mainly using pistols rather than semi-automatics.”

“I nicked the firing pins from all the guns in the armoury. Sally threw them in the bog,” Mary Sue told him.

Steve grinned at Haldir. “You're right, she is bloody brilliant!”

After an hour or so, they arrived back at Elgol. Legolas was surprised to see Lottie come hurtling across the car park towards him.

“Legolas.... It's Helena! The daft bugger's only gone and come all the way up here on the train. She's in the pub at Sligachan.”

Legolas swore loudly and fluently in English, then Sindarin, then Khudzul.

“ _Master Elf, who in the name of Morgoth taught you that kind of filth?_ ” asked Gimli with a laugh.

“ _I hang out with a bad crowd. You, mainly,_ ” Legolas answered, then turned to the twins. “ _Elladan, Elrohir, come with me._ ” And the three elves set off at a run back up the coast path towards Sligachan. The SAS commander looked in confusion at Haldir and Mary Sue.

“Legolas's girlfriend has shown up,” Haldir explained. “They're headed for Sligachan.”

“But that's a good 12, 14 miles away.”

“They'll still get there faster than the rest of us can drive,” said Haldir with a grin.

“Who do they think they are, Stephen Kiprotich?” asked the man.

“I think they'd leave him standing,” said Haldir.

~o~O~o~

Helena sat nursing a cup of tea – her third of the day – in the bar of the Sligachan Hotel. The barman hadn't batted an eyelid at the arrival of a heavily pregnant woman carrying only a small bag, who'd got off the bus at lunchtime and ordered a plate of fish and chips, then seemingly taken up residence. Aside from the gnawing worry in the pit of her stomach, she was quite comfortable. There was a log fire nearby and she felt warm and a little sleepy after the heavy meal. She listened with amusement to the conversation at the next table, glad to have something to distract her. A couple of locals were engaged in conversation with a party of tourists (American or Canadian – Helena's grasp of accents wasn't good enough to tell the difference, though she was sensible enough to know not to guess and put her foot in it). They were obviously trading myths and legends for beer. She shut her eyes and started to listen to the tall tales the locals were spinning.

The first was the tale of the five sisters of Kintail. 

“Many years ago, a fisherman had six daughters, all beautiful,” began the older of the two men, his voice softened by the characteristic lisp of the Gaelic speaker. “One day a Viking ship put in to port and the handsome young captain fell head over heels in love with the youngest girl. At first the father was stubborn, insisting that his daughters should be married in order of age. But the captain promised to sail back to Norway and return with his five equally handsome brothers. Eventually, he wore down the old man's resolve, and the captain and the youngest daughter were married. They sailed into the sunset, and the five remaining sisters sat down by the sea to await the arrival of his five brothers. But they waited in vain, and eventually, after many years, they turned to stone. And they sit there to this day, five mountains along the side of Glen Shiel, waiting still, and looking out along Loch Duich.” Helena found herself quite carried away by the legend. 

She was equally taken with the next, the story of a race up a mountain playing the pipes, between hero and villain. The good versus bad simplicity of the tale amused her. In the story, the two men raced higher and higher, each playing a haunting pibroch as he went. Just shy of the summit, the hero was slightly in the lead when the villain whipped out his sgian dubh, the knife a highlander keeps in his sock, and slit the bag of the hero's pipes. But the hero made a last desperate leap, landing on the summit with the final wail of his pipes. Ever after, the mountain had been called Sgurr Uaran, the peak of the cry. Helena sat, a faint smile on her face as she realised the subject matter of the yarns was changing to a topic much more germane to her.

“Aye, a lot of the local legends round here are to do with the fay folk. Fay as in fairy, and fey as in uncanny,” said the second of the locals, his west highland accent soft and lilting. “They come out of the shadows, often at night. Some say they come from the sea, like mer-people, that they're selkies, fay folk inhabiting the bodies of seals. Others that they hide in the woods and emerge in the dusk in autumn to dance by the burns and among the heather. Sometimes men fall in love with faerie women, only to have their hearts broken when the faeries disappear into the dusk like the mist, and sometimes faerie men seduce young maids, then leave them unwed, with child.” 

“Is that so?” said a familiar voice, laced with amusement. Helena's eyes snapped open. Standing in the doorway stood Legolas, flanked by Elladan and Elrohir. All three were dressed, not in modern clothes, but in tunics, leggings and boots, cloaks slung round their shoulders. Each carried a bow, and the dirt and blood of battle was still on their clothes and faces. Their hair was tied back in warrior braids, and there was no mistaking the unearthly beauty of their faces, nor the elven shape of their ears. Both locals and tourists gaped in amazement. Legolas gave a smile, and strode across the room towards Helena. He paused for a moment by the party seated at the next table.

“Unwed, I'll grant you. But have you ever tried getting a marriage licence when one of you is an elf from another world? As for the rest... Fay gets girl knocked up then scarpers... Bit of a cheap racial stereotype, don't you think?” He gave a grin, then turned and took another step, standing over Helena. She looked up at him, dirty, messy, sweaty, battle-stained, as near to dishevelled as she'd ever seen him, and swallowed hard, feeling a very familiar warmth in her body. She realised that if he wanted her, right here, right now, she'd just go along with it, audience and all. Hell, she wouldn't just go along with it, she'd nail him to the floor. He reached out his hands, and she took them, letting herself be drawn to her feet. He took her in his arms and kissed her. She tangled her hands in his hair, kissing him back with a heated desperation. Eventually, they broke apart. He let his hands slide down her arms, and looked at her, a serious expression in his eyes.

“What on earth were you thinking, _meleth nin_? Travelling in your condition? And Mary Sue and Sally got captured – that could have been you. I've been worried sick ever since I heard that you were here.”

“Mary Sue? Sally? What's happened?” asked Helena, voice filled with anxiety.

“It's alright, we rescued Mary Sue. Actually, more accurately, Mary Sue rescued us. She'd already helped Sally escape. Sally's got a broken ankle, but she's been flown to hospital. And Mary Sue managed to incapacitate the Nazgul. ”

“That sounds like her. How did she do it?”

“Belted him over the head with a hideous brass statuette.” Legolas paused. “But you're changing the subject, _meleth nin_. I was worried sick, and I'm still worried about you over-tiring yourself on the journey.”

“I couldn't bear sitting at home worrying about you. And don't worry about the travelling, I got the sleeper from London, it was very comfortable.”

Legolas heaved an exasperated sigh, not entirely sure in his own mind whether the exasperation was due to her nonchalance or envy at the comfort of her journey compared to the hell he had endured in the back of that bloody van. Either way, it was clear that Helena was not in the least fazed by the situation. He sat down on one of the chairs and pulled her onto his lap. Then as if realising he'd set about things in the wrong order, he gestured to Elladan.

“ _Here,_ ” he said, handing him some money, “ _go and ask for_ 'three beers'. _Do you think you can manage that?_ ” 

Elladan grumbled something about “ _bloody imperious princelings_ ”, but set off for the bar, where the barman stood, mouth hanging open. Legolas began the lengthy business of telling Helena exactly what they'd been up to. As he detailed the long trek over the mountains, the nerve wracking wait, the discovery that Mary Sue and Sally had been captured, and the final battle, together with how near to death Mary Sue had come, Helena went rigid in his arms. Eventually as he came to the end of his story, she managed to speak in a chastened voice.

“I'm sorry. I see now why you didn't want me to come. Is everyone alright?”

“Yes, everyone is fine, _meleth nin._ ” Legolas held her close, resting his cheek against her hair and breathing in the familiar scent of her.

 

**Author's notes:**

**According to Wikipedia, there were seven sisters. But the version I've put here is the version I learned as a child, visiting Loch Duich on holiday. Also, the story I learned about the etymology of “Sgurr Uaran” (pronounced Skoor Ooran) differs from the Wiki entry, which has it as “Sgurr Odran”, Odran being a disciple of St. Patrick. Pibroch, or ceol mor (great music) is a form of theme and variations, played on the pipes, Gaelic harp (clarsach) or fiddle.**

**Hope you all liked the “Leggy” moment – maybe not quite up there with surfing down stairs on a shield or climbing onto the back of a mumakil, but I did my best.**

**So, nearly at the end now. I guess we need to find out how the tadpoles are getting along...**


	29. Love's labours started

The day after they finally got back from Skye, Helena had to go to the antenatal clinic. She met Legolas in the cafe after the appointment. It was obvious that she was upset, but Legolas didn't really want to ask her about it with his boss and Cathy within earshot. When they finally got home alone, Legolas set about trying to find out what was wrong. He guessed that she was still coming to terms with the shock of the last few days. He reached over the table and took her hands in his.

“I am so sorry I had to go to war once more, _meleth nin._ I know that you worry for my safety, and that you do not like violence. But sometimes the threat posed by avoiding war is yet greater still,” he said.

“No, if ever anything was a 'just war', going to fight a demon-possessed politician who wasn't exactly the nicest of people even before he got possessed, and now has his own private army of orcs probably counts,” said Helena, with a wry smile. “But I was very, very worried about you, probably would have been at the best of times, and pregnancy makes me more emotional than normal, and the thought of our babies having no father... Of me not having you...” Her voice trailed off. Legolas walked round to her side of the table, and knelt beside her, before sliding his arm round her back. Helena continued, “But there's something else. At the hospital appointment. You know how the dating scan was wrong because our babies aren't growing as fast as they think they should be, so they've got me down as 37 weeks when in fact I'm more like 40 weeks, going off when I think we really conceived?”

“Yes,” said Legolas.

“Well, normally they'd want to deliver human twins at 38 weeks, so the obstetrician is putting me under enormous pressure to be booked in for an induction next week. And I'm terrified it's just too early for the babies. What do we do?”

“The only thing I can think of is to go back to see the obstetrician together, taking Tom with us, and get him to show him the results of the genetic tests he ran on me. And hope that he doesn't think we're suffering from some sort of strange, collective delusion. Either that or go back to the north of Scotland and hide out in a bothy in the middle of nowhere till you reach term,” Legolas added, smiling softly. He kissed her forehead. “We'll think of something, meleth nin. It will all be alright. I didn't fight a Nazgul only to have you scared by a doctor.” Helena gave a small, wavering smile in return.

“Come, _meleth nin_ , let's go to bed.” He drew her gently to her feet and led her into their bedroom.

“It's not fair,” said Helena, “We finally get rid of all the bloody elves with their extra good hearing, and now I just feel knackered and uncomfortable and huge. Like a bloody beached whale.”

“You don't look like a whale, you look beautiful. Everything about you is beautiful, including this,” Legolas said, running his hands over her belly. “But it's alright, I am more than content simply to hold you. Just to be with you soothes my soul.”

~o~O~o~

In the end, they had done more than hold each other. Gently affectionate kisses had grown gently passionate, and Helena had let her hands wander to regions which left Legolas in no doubt as to her change in mood. But it had not been one of those occasions which left the room spinning; rather it had been a slow, leisurely, almost lazy love making, which had left them both sleepily satisfied, tangled in each other's limbs. Legolas reflected that sometimes fireworks were not the be all and end all. In that moment, he felt that this sense of languorous contentment was worth more than all the jewels ever mined by the dwarves of Middle Earth. The woman he loved slept peacefully in his arms.

Suddenly, he became aware of Helena moving against him. She twitched, a sharp jerking motion, and woke with a start. Her eyelids fluttered open, her face grimacing in pain.

“Ow,” she muttered, then seemed to gasp for breath.

“What is it, _meleth nin?_ ” Legolas asked anxiously. He had to wait for a long moment which seemed to stretch out as she struggled to get her breath back enough to form words. Eventually she managed to speak.

“Ow, crampy pains like period pains,” she said. 

“What do we do? Should I call the hospital?” Legolas said, sounding a bit panicky. Facing the massed armies of Sauron was one thing, seeing the woman he loved in labour struck him as an entirely different proposition.

“It's alright, it's probably only Braxton-Hicks – you know, the practise contractions they told us about in the classes.”

“Are you sure?” Legolas asked, painfully aware of Helena's seemingly endless capacity for ignoring the obvious when she was frightened or out of her depth emotionally.

“Everything's fine, I'm going to go back to sleep,” she said, and lay down on her side, leg draped over the pillow that now got a rather larger share of the bed than Legolas. He lay down behind her and wrapped his arm round her midriff. She shut her eyes, and gradually her breathing slowed. After about 20 minutes, Legolas could sense her drifting off to sleep. Then she jerked once more. This time he felt her belly go hard as granite under his hand.

“Ooh, that hurts,” she said again. 

“Now can we call the hospital?” said Legolas.

“Not yet, the first thing we do is wait for the next one to see how far apart they are,” Helena said. Remember the midwives said not to go in till they were five minutes apart. They'll only send us home again if we go in too soon. Besides which, it could be hours before I get to that stage, and I think I'd sooner be at home.” She smiled at him. “Looks like the old wives' tale about sex starting babies off isn't an old wives' tale after all.”

“Helena, are you sure about this? Didn't they say that twin pregnancies were different?” 

“No, I'm sure five minutes was the magic number,” Helena replied, rather too breezily for his peace of mind. “I'd much sooner be here than stuck in hospital covered in wires and stuff.” She snuggled up under the duvet again. With a slightly exasperated sigh, Legolas settled down beside her again. Feeling tense and on edge, he waited. This time, even Helena didn't manage to doze. Sure enough, after another twenty minutes or so, Helena gasped with pain and held Legolas's hand tightly.

“This time, we make a note of the time,” he said. When, after a minute or so, she relaxed in his arms, he picked up the clock. “4.43,” he said.

~o~O~o~

By 7.30, Helena had abandoned her rather pointless attempt to cat-nap between contractions. She was perched back-to-front on one of the dining chairs trying, and failing, to watch a DVD. The contractions were coming roughly every quarter of an hour, and Legolas sat beside her, ready to massage her back when they happened which seemed to help a bit. He'd just put in another plea to call the hospital when the door to the sitting room opened, and Gimli entered, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“ _I thought I heard the two of you up and about,_ ” he said.

“ _We think Helena's babies are on the way,_ ” said Legolas.

“ _What! Now? Shouldn't you be doing something? Should I boil some towels and fetch water or something? Or boil the water and fetch towels?_ ” Gimli burst out. Legolas laughed at his panic, then sobered somewhat.

“ _Helena assures me that all is well, though I think she should go to the house of healing,_ ”the Elf said.

“ _Is she sure? I think if you are in doubt, then you should call upon the healers,_ ” said Gimli.

“Gimli agrees with me, we should call the hospital,” Legolas translated.

Helena got up from the chair and started to pace round the room.

“Will you two stop clucking like a pair of mother hens?” Suddenly she grabbed the back of the armchair and bent forward slightly, her breath coming in short bursts. “Ouch, that really, really hurts,” she gasped. Legolas came over and put his arms around her shoulders. After a minute or so, she straightened up.

“Could you tell Gimli that I don't want to be rude, but I really don't want an audience for this. Do you think he could go round to see Elladan and Elrohir?” Legolas translated, and Gimli nodded his assent, rather relieved to have an excuse to leave. He'd chopped off enough orc heads to be convinced that he was no longer squeamish, but really, there were some situations a dwarf just didn't want to face. And this was one of them.

~o~O~o~

The rest of the day passed in a strange mixture of tension and boredom. The contractions settled at 15 minute intervals for several hours, then seemed to ease off again in the early evening (“See,” Helena had said triumphantly, “This is why you don't rush straight into hospital.”) Late at night, however, they had returned with renewed strength. Legolas had repeated his request that they phone the hospital and this time, tired of the pain and starting to feel the lack of a decent night's sleep the previous night, Helena had finally acquiesced. Legolas felt slightly aggrieved at the reaction. He had received a tremendous ticking off from the midwife at the other end of the phone. Yes, they should have come into hospital immediately given that it was twins, no, he shouldn't have listened to Helena, he should have phoned up to check. However, one look at Helena's face told him that saying “I told you so” would probably be a more foolhardy proposition than attacking a Balrog armed only with his pair of daggers. Instead he set about phoning round taxi firms trying to persuade one that, armed with enough towels and plastic sheet, their seats would survive the risk of taking a woman in labour to hospital.

“Call Lottie, she's got a car,” said Helena.

~o~O~o~

Lottie arrived within 10 minutes, to find Helena mid contraction, bent double, clutching the back of a chair.

“They seem to be coming much more frequently all of a sudden,” said Legolas, clearly worried. “And I think her waters broke about 5 minutes ago.”

“How frequently?” asked Lottie.

“Less than 3 minute gaps now,” Legolas replied.

Helena straightened up. “I want to push...”

“OK, can you do your best not to push just yet? Before I get you in the car I want to take a quick look. Is that alright, Helena?” asked Lottie. Helena nodded, and Lottie helped her with her underwear. “How are you most comfortable?”

“Standing up,” said Helena.

“Alright, I'll do my best.” Despite being increasingly worried, Legolas could see the funny side as Lottie got down on all fours and peered up between Helena's legs.

“Oh Christ, I can see the head!” Lottie said. “Legolas, call 999, NOW! Helena, down on all fours with your bum in the air, don't push, and try to pant every time you get a contraction.”

Helena did as she was told, and Lottie knelt beside her. In the background she could hear Legolas on the phone. “Okay, we've got a moment between contractions. Where do you keep the towels?” She ran out of the room. Helena heard the sound of the bathroom tap running; Lottie was obviously 'scrubbing up'. Just as another wave of pain hit, Lottie returned with armfuls of towels. She got back down on her knees. “Just pant, pant, don't push.” Helena gave a series of loud groans of pain, then as the contraction subsided, launched into an inventive string of swear words. 

“Legolas, come and hold her hand and get sworn at – you're the one to blame, after all,” said Lottie. Legolas found his hand taken in an iron grip. He felt as if the bones were being crushed.

“Helena, the trick is to try to hold off till the ambulance can get here. I have delivered babies, but they'll have all the kit we need. So keep your bum in the air, keep panting, don't push.”

“You said that already.... Ah shit that hurts...” Another bone-crunching assault on Legolas's hand. “Oh, ow, I don't think I can control it, shit shit shit...”

“Oh,” said Legolas, trying to cover his dismay, “I didn't realise you meant that literally.” Lottie wiped the mess up with a matter-of-fact air. 

“Get a grip, Legolas. It's perfectly normal. Happens to almost everyone. Just don't remind her of it afterwards.”

Helena was hit by another contraction. “I can't stop it,” she panted. Lottie looked between her legs. 

“Okay, you can't hold on till the ambulance arrives. Legolas, hold her under the arms in a squatting position.” He did as he was told and helped Helena into position. 

“Helena love, try not to push, try to just let it come slowly.” Lottie lay on the floor between Helena's legs. Helena gave a yell of pain. 

“My God, it feels like I'm shitting a pineapple backwards.”

“Yeah, I gather it's known as the 'ring of fire'. But that's the head out. Baby number one should be out with the next contraction.” Lottie supported the baby's head, and put gentle pressure on the skin round about. As Helena gave another groan, Lottie gently eased the shoulders round. Moments later the baby slithered out into her waiting hands. 

“This one's a girl,” she said. Gently but quickly, she dried the baby, wrapped her in a towel.

Wide eyed with astonishment, Legolas stared at his baby daughter. He was hit by a sudden rush of love for the tiny creature. All of a sudden he felt as though he was floating clear of the ground. The baby looked back at him with enormous, alert blue eyes. Then she opened her mouth and gave a wail. 

“Help Helena onto the floor for a moment,” Lottie said. Helena went back on all fours. “Sit beside her holding the baby,” Lottie instructed.

Legolas got down beside Helena. He took the baby in his arms, and rocked her gently. As the warmth of being held calmed her, she stopped crying. He sat cuddling the little elfling with a blissful expression on his face. Helena looked at her child with a stunned smile, her first smile for some time. “She's so beautiful,” said Helena. The baby turned her head slightly at the sound of Helena's voice, and the two gazed at each other. “Hello, little tadpole,” Helena murmured.

Legolas gave a slight frown. “Shouldn't we cut the cord or something?” he asked.

“We don't have the equipment. It's perfectly safe to leave it,” said Lottie. “The cord will stop pulsating in a moment, and we can leave it till after we've delivered the afterbirth. At the moment we have to worry about twin two. Helena, can I do an internal to see if I can feel which way round the next baby is. I'll be as gentle as I can. Let me know if it hurts.”

“Mmm hmm,” said Helena, who seemed lost in contemplation of her daughter. Lottie very gently probed with her fingers. Helena came back to reality with a gasp of “ouch.”

“Sorry,” said Lottie. “I think twin two is breech, I think that's its bottom. So hairpin breech. I don't have the expertise to turn it, we'll just have to see how it goes. Legolas, can you lay the baby down just slightly to the side and hold Helena up again. Again, try not to push, we'll just try to let the baby come out as gently as possible.”

Another contraction hit Helena, and she yelled. As it subsided, she snarled, “Two bloody pineapples this time. Legolas Thranduillion, you are never coming near me ever again.” 

Legolas gripped her under her arms, and laid his cheek against her hair. Lottie lay back on the floor. As the baby's bottom appeared, she gently supported it to try to slow its arrival. Gradually, with each contraction, she steered the baby a little bit further into the world, until very gently she could ease the head out. She realised with a start that the cord was round the baby's neck. With great care she slid her fingers in between its neck and the cord and eased the loop over the head. Then she towelled the baby. For a long moment, there was silence. Helena looked anxiously at the baby. Suddenly the tiny child took a great gasp, then bawled. 

“Thank goodness,” said Helena. 

“Congratulations. This one's a little boy,” said Lottie. “Argh,” she added as the baby felt the effects of the cold air and and an arc of urine hit her square on. “Definitely a little boy.” Helena burst out laughing. Lottie wrapped the second baby in a clean towel and handed him to Helena, who reached out a finger and stroked his cheek. The baby opened his eyes and stared back at her, face red and wrinkled. “Let's make you a bit more comfortable.”

Legolas helped Helena lie down on cushions from the couch, then took his daughter in his arms again.

“We just have to wait to deliver the placentas now. Might take up to half an hour, more than that and they'll deal with it in hospital,” said Lottie. “It shouldn't hurt anywhere near as much as the babies did. We should see if they're hungry. Can you lift your top up and we'll help them find some food?”

There was a ring at the doorbell. 

“Better late than never,” said Lottie with a huge grin. She got to her feet and went to let the paramedics in. 

**Author's note: A big thank you to all my real life friends whose birth stories/ partner's birth stories I have shamelessly plundered to write this chapter. And of course I still remember the totally amazing feeling of looking into my son's eyes for the first time. (Yes, he did pee on the midwife.)**

**Public service announcement: This is a work of fiction (just in case you hadn't worked that out by now) – if you're ever pregnant, go off what your health professionals advise you, not my version of things. And every birth is different. This one actually progresses rather faster than the average first time birth, though there's a wide variation (friends of mine have done everything from 3 hours to 3 days for a first birth ). BTW I checked the current NHS guidelines before writing this – basically Legolas was right, twin pregnancies are treated differently, and the advice is to go to hospital at the first sign of labour. But as we all know by now, 'Denial' is Helena's middle name.**


	30. Epilogue

The days immediately after the birth passed in a whirl of extremes of emotion. Helena and Legolas floated around in a blissful state for a couple of days. Legolas found he couldn't bear to be parted from the babies. There was nothing he liked more than to cuddle one while Helena fed the other, breathing in the incredible milky scent of warm baby, feeling utterly euphoric. On the third day, though, Helena's milk came in, and she got the baby blues. Legolas felt helpless, unable to do anything beyond hug her and wipe away her tears in the moments when the babies slept and do his best to help her when they were awake. Fortunately the blues came and went, and Helena seemed much better the next day. Legolas found his ability to go without sleep invaluable. He could do most of the baby related chores, and feed the adults, leaving Helena as much time as possible to sleep between the twins' feeds.

There is not much more to tell. To Legolas's delight and enormous pride, the Home Secretary pulled various strings to allow him to be named as father on the twins' birth certificates. He and Helena went to the registry office, and Auriel and Cûrion's existence became a matter of official record. 

To Steve's enormous relief, he was busted a couple of ranks, and no further action was taken.

About a week after the birth Helena's friends introduced the elves and Gimli to the time-honoured tradition of wetting the babies' heads. They made the happy discovery that port (when drunk from large wine glasses, rather than the tiny glasses mortals favoured) was about the same strength as Dorwinion wine, culminating in the elves getting rather merry. The end result was a joint effort in penning a drunken letter to Galadriel, purportedly from Legolas:

“ _Madam, you have most grievously wronged me, I who have never done you any slight to deserve the fate you have inflicted on me. For I have had to undergo the ordeal of an MPreg, alone and friendless in a strange realm. The horror of my situation has been beyond all imagining: the morning sickness, the tiredness, the swollen ankles, the acid reflux, (dare I mention such things) the haemorrhoids. The pain of childbirth, like unto nothing I have experienced before, even when wounded in battle. Not to mention the stretch marks which now mar my hitherto unblemished skin. And finally I must live evermore with the traumatic knowledge that never again will I be able to leap effortlessly onto the back of a charging mûmakil and single-handedly kill a dozen Haradrim together with the beast itself. From henceforth, if I find myself in need of undertaking such deeds, I will have to pause to consider the state of my pelvic floor. Kegels can only do so much. I am but a shadow of the proud ellon I once was._ ”

“Are you going to send it?” Matt asked, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes after Legolas had translated the letter for him..

“Probably not, tempting though it is. But I think I might leave the Lady to explain recent events to my father; I don't relish trying to account for my doings. I'm just hoping he'll behave better than Helena's father.”

“Helena's father is a complete git, though,” said Jonathan.

“Yes, I have no desire to meet him again. I don't think I will ever forgive him for making Helena walk so far in the rain when pregnant. I must admit, however, that my father can be irascible, overbearing, peremptory. But there is no malice in him. At heart, he is decent and fair,” Legolas had replied.

“So, have you worked out how to tell your father?” asked Matt.

“Well, I've been talking to Mary Sue, and she will get in touch with the Lady Galadriel. Galadriel can probably return me to Middle Earth in order to tell my father. I think I won't take Helena the first time I see him. If my father reacts badly, I don't want to put Helena through the pain of having to cope with it. She was so hurt by her father's nastiness. But I was quite serious in what I just said: I am going to make the Lady Galadriel come with me – she can explain why she saw fit to transport me here, with my memory impaired, so I had no idea of what was happening.”

“That sounds fair enough,” said Matt, then added, “And what about the long term?”

“Helena and I have been talking about that. For the time being, we think we will stay in your world. I cannot imagine Helena being happy without people to talk to about physics and maths,” Legolas said with a grin. “And there is no-one in Middle Earth who can compete with her level of ability.”

“There aren't many here,” said Matt, with an answering smile, “And most of the ones who can have Nobel prizes.”

“Though as the children get older, we may go to spend time with other elves. As Peredhil, at some point they may have to choose between a mortal life or an immortal life, and it would be good if they could experience something of the life of my people before they get old enough to be likely to fall in love...” Legolas's voice trailed off. Matt put a hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort. Lottie and Tom exchanged glances; for the first time they managed to grasp the enormity of what falling in love with a mortal meant for Legolas. Tom broke the silence.

“Actually, do you think you and Helena could come along to my lab tomorrow? There's something I need to tell you about, but I think it's better explained there, where I can show you some of the samples and talk you through some of the computer output.”

~o~O~o~

Legolas and Helena sat at Tom's desk in the corner of his lab, each cradling a baby. The elflings seemed fascinated by all the bright lights on the lab equipment.

“So what did you want to tell us?” asked Helena.

“Well, quite some time ago now, in fact before the two of you got together, I took some samples from Legolas and sequenced his DNA,” said Tom. “Not suprisingly, there are quite a few differences, but also considerable similarities, otherwise the two of you wouldn't have been able to have the twins. But the main difference is in the telomeres.

“Telomeres are sections of nucleotides on the ends of chromosomes. They stop the genes near the chromosome ends being degraded during cell division. Each cell division strips away part of the telomere, but they're usually repaired, at least partially, by an enzyme, telomerese reverse transcriptase. However, over a long period of continual cell division, the telomeres shorten irreparably. It's thought that this is an evolutionary trade-off – cells can't replicate perfectly indefinitely, but this has the benefit that it greatly reduces runaway cell division which would otherwise cause cancer.

“There's some evidence that longer than average telomeres in humans are associated with longer than average lifespan. Anyway, the fascinating thing about the cell cultures I took from Legolas is that his cells all seem to have very long telomeres, and they're all exactly the same length, suggesting that whatever happens during cell division in elves, there isn't the built-in self destruct mechanism that most mammalian cells have.”

Helena nodded, then said, “So if I've got this right, you've worked out why Legolas is immortal.”

“Yes, I think so. But here's where it gets really interesting, and relevant to both of you. I took some blood samples from you during pregnancy because we know that some of the foetal blood manages to cross the placenta and I wanted to see if I could detect traces of the babies' genetic material in your blood stream,” Tom said.

“I remember it only too well. I felt like a blooming pin cushion by the time you'd finished with me. I swear all you medical types only have a thin veneer of science about you; really you all want to go back to blood letting and leeches,” Helena replied with a chuckle.

“Leeches are damn good for preventing clotting after microsurgery, I'll have you know,” Tom answered. “But seriously, the next bit is where it gets really interesting. We've known for a while that stem cells from the foetus cross the placenta and can actually affect the mother's DNA, flicking epigenetic switches on and off. Well, it appears that the twins' stem cells have had a major effect on both the length of your telomeres and on the action of the reverse transcriptase. Your telomeres now look like those of a young child, and the transcriptase seems to be doing a much better job of repairing the telomeres after cell division.”

Helena's jaw dropped. She looked at Tom in stunned amazement. “Are you saying what I think you're saying?” she stammered.

“Well, you're not actually immortal. But if I'm right about this (and I will want to follow this up over several years to see how long the effects last) then you'll live for a long time, far longer than most humans. And you should stay healthy and youthful for most of that longer life.”

Legolas gave a loud, joyful shout in Sindarin. Grinning from ear-to-ear he reached over and took Helena's hand. He squeezed it, then raised it to his lips and kissed her fingers. But then his face became thoughtful. “What if the effects are only temporary?”

“Well, I'm pretty sure the effect won't go away overnight, or even for several years, but if it starts to drop off again, I think I have a suggestion. You'll be glad to know that I think the solution to that might be getting her pregnant again. It's a tough job, but I'm sure you'll be up to it. Or up for it.”

Helena laughed. “Well, things are on hold temporarily in that department, but I'm quite sure we'll be following doctor's orders within a few months.”

“Well, wait for the lab results before going down the barefoot and pregnant route. You'll have plenty of time, so you may want to space the babies out a bit!”

~o~O~o~

The final day of our story dawned cold but sunny, a delightfully crisp winter's day. It was a very unusual gathering in the Perch, on the edge of Port Meadow. A mixed group of one dwarf, several humans, elves, peredhil (ages ranging from several thousand years down to three weeks) and Tory politicians gathered in one of the rooms overlooking the river. Even by the standards of north Oxford, it was an eclectic mix.

The gathering was glad of the roaring fire in the grate. Festivities had kicked off with Lottie presenting Legolas and Helena with a bag of presents. There were brightly coloured clothes and toys for the babies (including a multi-coloured spider which danced when you pulled its string – Haldir confessed to having suggested its purchase). For the grown-ups, there was a box of chocolates and a bottle of Laphroig. And, tastefully wrapped in a William Morris print paper, with a satin bow attached, there was a small box which turned out to contain two dozen condoms and a leaflet giving directions to family planning clinics in Oxford. Helena noted with considerable amusement that the condoms were NHS own-brand.

“Tight wad,” she whispered to Lottie when she got a moment out of earshot of everyone else. 

In threes and fours, the group got themselves drinks and settled down. At one side of the room, Haldir and Mary Sue sat at a table with Sally. Sally's crutches were propped in the corner, and she rested her plaster cast on a bar stool.

“I hope Elrohir behaved himself,” said Haldir.

“Depends what you mean by 'behaved'. We had a lot of fun,” said Sally, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

“But you don't even speak each other's languages,” said Haldir, his eyes wide with surprise. “How can he have courted you?”

“Trust me, it wasn't his conversation I was interested in,” said Sally, with a lascivious grin. She took a long pull on her pint. Mary Sue looked very amused by Haldir's shocked expression. Haldir took refuge in his own pint of beer, staring at the table as he took a sip.

“Of course, when it came down to it, Elladan was actually better,” Sally added. Haldir made a choking sound and spluttered beer across the table. Mary Sue patted his back, laughing out loud. Sally grinned. “Yup, the quiet ones tend to be better – they try harder. The ones who think they're god's gift usually aren't all that.” Haldir gaped. Sally pretended to bridle at his shocked expression. “Hey, it's not like it was both of them at once.”

“Oh, that's alright then,” said Haldir sarcastically. “I can rest easy knowing that all the proprieties were observed.” He was rather relieved to realise that Henry Prior and Julia Marlowe had arrived at the table, ruling out any further revelations about the Elrondion twins' sexual prowess.

“May we join you?” Marlowe asked. 

“Yeah, pull up a chair,” said Mary Sue.

“Well, this has been an eventful few weeks,” said Prior. “I'm still reeling at the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was possessed by a wraith from another world.”

“Though thinking about it,” said Sally, her economics background surfacing, “The dead giveaway was that the Nazgul actually had a better grasp of macro-economic theory than Westbrook.”

“I'm sorry to say that, given Simeon's base-line, I don't think that's any particular claim to fame,” said Prior cynically.

“So what's become of him?” asked Sally.

“He's being kept in a military hospital, in a medically induced coma,” said Marlowe.

Mary Sue chipped in, “We're hoping that either Galadriel or Elrond will be able to come and deal with the Nazgul at some point.”

“I'm not sure there's any great urgency. After all, for the time being, his deputy seems to have been doing rather a good job. I always felt the man should have had the job in the first place, and would have done, had it not been for the old school tie,” said Prior.

Haldir and Mary Sue took advantage of Jonathan and Matt's arrival to get up and go to the bar. The two men settled on the bench the elves had vacated. Jonathan put his arm round Matt's shoulders and gave him a kiss. At the next table, Mablung looked on in shocked amazement. Anborn dug him in the ribs.

“ _Don't stare. It's not considered anything shocking here, and they're Legolas's friends,_ ” Anborn said.

“ _But they're men... and they're kissing. Each other!_ ” Mablung said.

“ _Top marks for observation. I can see how you came to be a Ranger. Look, is anyone expecting you to kiss another man?_ ” asked Anborn.

“ _No, but..._ ”

“ _Are any men trying to kiss you?_ ”

“ _No..._ ”

“ _Well then it's none of your damn business, is it?_ ” Anborn's tone conveyed a certain finality. Sensing that Mablung's meaning must have been clear despite the language barrier, he gave Jonathan and Matt an apologetic smile.

Sally introduced the two men to Marlowe and Prior. Matt gave a slightly shy grin, and said, “I never thought I'd end up saying this to a couple of Government Ministers, but thank you for voting the way you did. Jonathan and I are planning on getting married next spring, and it really means an enormous amount to us that we can get married properly.”

Julia Marlowe beamed. “Congratulations, and I'm very happy to think that I played a small part. Sometimes, being a politician brings moments where you feel you can really be proud of what you've achieved.”

Haldir and Mary Sue got another couple of drinks. Rather than go back to the table, they stood by one of the windows, surveying the scene. Helena sat on a leather sofa, feeding Cûrion while she chatted to Lottie. The baby's tiny hand opened and closed like a little pink starfish, instinctively grabbing at his mother's breast. 

Legolas stood with Auriel snuggled over his shoulder, cheek resting against the soft, sparse downy hair on her tiny head. He was jiggling her gently up and down and softly patting her back in the time-honoured tradition for shifting wind. Auriel blinked myopically, staring at the world, fascinated by the sensation soup she swam in, even if she didn't yet understand it. It appeared that Legolas was either oblivious to, or (in the manner of new parents the world over) past caring about the streak of sick down his back. He was now engaged as translator in a lively exchange of anecdotes of active service, men (both Ithilien Rangers and current and past members of the SAS), elves and the lone dwarf all competing with story after story. Mary Sue realised that Haldir's attention had shifted from the scene at large, and he was now looking at her, a contemplative expression on his face.

“Guess all that's left now is to get Galadriel to send us to Nevada,” said Mary Sue. There was a long pause, eventually broken when Haldir spoke.

“Do you remember Rohan?” he asked.

“You wore pink, the Uruk Hai wore grey,” quipped Mary Sue. 

Haldir gave a puzzled frown. “Pink?”

“Movie reference. Don't worry about it... Hang on, no, I know Galadriel's got NetFlix, get her to show you Casablanca some time,” said Mary Sue with a chuckle.

After another pause, Haldir gave the merest hint of a smile and said, “Actually I was thinking more about us getting caught in my cloak.”

“Yeah, in retrospect it's pretty funny,” said Mary Sue. She fell silent for a moment, as if collecting her thoughts, then continued, “You know, given that these days a girl's gotta have at least one failed marriage behind her to have any chance of coming across as a woman of the world with a mysterious past, I couldn't ask for a better ex than you. You're actually a really nice guy, when you're not being all prissy and pompous.”

“Prissy, pompous, talk about a back-handed compliment,” said Haldir. He looked at Mary Sue. His brows came together in a slight frown. “I'm not that prissy.”

“No, I seem to remember you taking a good peek down the front of my dress back there in the Haradwaith. There's another word covers that sort of thing... also begins with a 'P',” she made a big performance of pretending to have difficulty finding the right phrase, before grinning and saying, “oh yeah, 'pervert'.”

“Well, you heard what Sally said just now, it's the quiet ones...” All of a sudden Mary Sue found herself pulled close by strong arms, and kissed soundly, and, to her surprise, rather expertly. It was a while before the two of them came up for air, realising that they were now the centre of attention (and more than a few wolf-whistles).

“So, about Reno,” Haldir whispered in her ear. “Do you think we could postpone that trip and give this a try?”

“I think,” said Mary Sue, kissing him back, “This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

**THE END**


End file.
